A Rose for a Kingdom - Old Version
by Zanzetkuken
Summary: The Red Rose cards were captured one after another by the Rose Duelist. The duel against the Guardian was won and the Card Guardian once more being sealed. However, the ritual to return the Duelist to his time goes awry due to an unforeseen interference, and he is instead sent to a world he does not know. A world gazed upon by a broken moon. -HAS BEEN REVISED INTO A NEW VERSION-
1. Chapter 1: Interrupted Transport

**Stonehenge. Salisbury, England. July 1485. War of the Roses.**

Two men stood within the center of the circle of stones that composed the structure known as Stonehenge. One is a relatively young appearing individual with short brown hair and white armor specially crafted to evoke in the minds of others the idea of a powerful dragon. The other apparently similarly aged individual is dressed in far simpler armor, only a basic cuirass and spaulder over chain mail. Strangely, this auburn-haired, blue-eyed man seems to wear clothes that would not be made for many centuries later than the current time underneath the armor, which could be recognized as a faded pale green t-shirt, denim jeans, and gray athletic shoes. A short sword hands in a scabbard upon his left hip. This second individual is bent over gripping his knees and attempting to catch his breath while the former is looking around the ancient site that is still reeling from the powerful magics that were running through it only minutes ago, resignation barely visible within his guarded eyes.

"So, that is that all that was needed?" The lesser armored youth asks between breaths. "It is sealed again?"

"The Summoning is undone, Rose Duelist…" the ornately armored man spoke.

The Rose Duelist let out a small chuckle and rose to his full height before speaking. "I thought I had asked you to call me Solomon if you were to have me address you as Seto, Rosenkreuz."

Seto kept his eyes looking over the area, and as Solomon was just about to speak up, he began speaking. "My family… Legend has it that my family was the only noble line to actually enter into a Pact of Glory with a Card Guardian."

Solomon cut off what he had been about to say to listen as Rosenkreuz continued. "But sometime in the past, the pact was broken for reasons that are veiled in the mists of history. For generations, our family has searched the world in the hopes of finding the same Card Guardian to revive the Pact and the glory that was once ours. Since the day I inherited the "Book of M" at Dumkul, I've searched far and wide…"

Seto's gaze became distant, becoming slightly lost in his memories. "Many are the Guardians I've awakened, only to return them to their resting place. To date, search for the one true Guardian goes unrewarded. You can't imagine how excited I was when I'd come to England and learned of the 'Rose Duelist Legend'…"

His gaze looked around Stonehenge as the final pieces of magic from the summoning began to fade. "Needless to say, the result was anticlimactic at best…"

The White Rose Crusader retreated into a silent contemplation. Solomon grabbed the man's right shoulder with his left hand, causing Seto to glance right to face the Rose Duelist. "With how long your family has probably been searching, I have few doubts that you will soon find the true Guardian you are seeking," Solomon said, breaking away after.

Seto gave a slight nod, turning to face Solomon fully before speaking, "I apologize for dragging you into all of this."

The Rose Duelist fully faced the White Rose Crusader, giving a slight smile before responding. "There is no need for an apology. You were not the one who had brought me back in time to begin with. That blame lies fully upon the Red Roses, and I believe they have paid fully for their folly of assuming I would automatically ally with them after they summoned me from my time without even offering me even simply returning me to my own time, unlike yourself." Solomon gave a dark chuckle, before muttering, "Gods above, I nearly sounded like a Card Guardian with that line."

A look of confusion ran over Rosenkreuz's face for a split second at the slightly casual mention of gods, before he composed himself and responded. "I will honor my promise of returning you to your own age. However, I fear that that is not enough to repay you for your help. Wait!"

Seto strode over to the pack, retrieving something and then returning and handing it over to Solomon. "Here! Take this back with you."

It was a pendent with a blue-purple string. Upon the circular main body was a white rose upon an azure field with a golden center and two crossed single edge swords. It was the sigil of the White Rose faction. Accepting it, Solomon took a glance at the back and saw an inscription. "Man is born to die, but the Pledge of Roses is born to live throughout all eternity." A surge of power ran through the Rose Duelist, and a new card manifested itself in his mind. It was Earthshaker, a spell that launches forth what amounts to an earthquake that scrambles the terrain of the surrounding area, flattening structures where relevant. 'What?' Solomon thought.

"I will continue in my quest to find the one true Guardian," Seto continued, not noticing the confused reaction of Solomon. "Perhaps it is my destiny to fail. But my descendants shall carry on the search. Should you meet such a descendant of mine, show this Rose Pendant. For from this day onward, my family is ever in your debt and will lend whatever support it is within their powers to provide. This I promise as an eternal pledge… a 'Pledge of Roses'."

"Thank you. I shall not waste the trust you place in me," Solomon replied, giving a slight bow. He put it on and slid it underneath his shirt beneath the armor to prevent damage. The Rose Duelist grabbed the pack he had stored the other belongings he had gathered in his time in fifteenth century England, as well as the last of his food, before he moved to the center of Stonehenge. As Seto prepared the Ritual to send him home, Solomon focused inward. There was something he needed to do.

He found himself within the corridor to his soul. The door to his soul room was in front of him, at the end of the hall, but that was not where he was heading. Neither was he heading towards the vortex door upon the wall to its immediate left which led to where he managed the connections to which cards could be drawn upon in battle. Solomon placed his hand upon the door to the right, with the combined design of both factions split vertically down the center, the White Rose to the right and Red Rose to the left. The door opened easily and Solomon strode into the chamber.

Kneeling before an altar to a number of gods composing a pantheon that Solomon could only slightly understand the basics of was woman. Her golden hair ran over the back of her deep purple cape which hid her exceptionally ornate red and gold armor and gold sheathed sword. Two wings extended from below her red helm at each of her temples. Around the middle of her torso ran two thick lines of feathers, each facing opposing directions. This was his Deck Leader, Tactical Warrior.

"Greetings Tac," Solomon spoke, causing her to stir from her focus.

"It is odd how you would greet someone simply to tell them it is time to say goodbye," she said after rising and turning to face him.

Solomon gave a sad smile. "We have a bit of time to speak, but yes, unless the connection somehow remains intact after I return, this will be our last meeting."

One of the wings extending from her left temple gave a slight twitch that betrayed the emotions the stoic appearance she had hid. "It was an inevitability since you were first forcibly brought into this time by the Summoning Ritual. For all it is worth, I am glad that you had chosen me to pair with yourself for this journey, rather than Serpentine Princess or Thunder Nyan Nyan."

"I should be thanking you," the Rose Duelist replied. "If it were not for the connection the Rose Cards established, then I would not have been able to summon anything to face off against any of the Red Rose wielders."

Solomon took a short glance back before returning to her. "Seto is probably going to be ready to begin soon, so I might as well say this now. It has been an honor to have been able to duel with you, Tac." The Duelist gave a slight bow at the end of his last statement.

Tactical Warrior froze for a second, before recomposing herself and responding, "It has likewise been an honor to work alongside you, Solomon." She returned the bow.

Solomon gave a slight smile before exiting the room and exiting the mental world to return to the real world, Tactical Warrior's presence now presenting a feeling of a much more outward focus. Noticing that Solomon had returned to awareness of reality, Seto spoke, "The Ritual is ready to begin."

The Rose Duelist gave a slight nod. "Fare well, Seto," He responded. "May fortune favor your search."

"May your future be one of your own choice," the White Rose Crusader replied, before beginning the ritual to return Solomon home. Storm clouds once again gathered overhead and the air hummed with magic as the spell began to reach its climax. As a vortex began to form directly over Stonehenge, Solomon began to float, before being shot upward into the clouds in a reverse of how he had arrived. The clouds below him sealed as he entered them, obscuring his sight of Stonehenge.

'Farewell, Ta-' Solomon began to thought towards his Deck Leader before he was wrenched to a stop. "The hell?" he exclaimed. "This didn't happen last time…"

"IT DID NOT," spoke a thunderous, echoing voice that seemed to come from every direction and be composed of several interlacing voices. One of these voices Solomon recognized.

"Manawyddan!?" The Rose Duelist shouted aloud. He thought he felt a slight twinge of fear coming over his connection with Tactical Warrior, but it was drowned out by the all-consuming nature of the Guardian's next comment.

"INDEED," the Card Guardians voice once more assaulted Solomon's ears, this time primarily from in front of the Rose Duelist. A dark shape formed in the clouds that initially appeared similar to Manawyddan fab Llyr's appearance during the duel, but as it approached, the similarities began to dwindle until it entered the sphere of clear air Solomon had been traveling through, revealing the demon in full.

The entity stood a head taller than Manawyddan had in the prior form. The shoulders seemed to have been replaced with spheres swirling with dark energy, each roughly the size of the creature's head, guarded with massive pauldrons that appeared to be composed of a bone-like substance. Connected to these by bone were elbow length silver-steel gauntlets that extended past the tip of the fingers into sharp claws. A line of bones that formed an X over the stomach of exposed muscle, connecting at the hips to a long purple skirt that hid everything below the navel, and at the lower ribs to a piece of torso armor that dealt great pain upon Solomon when he so much as glanced at it. Attached to the body by a neck of flayed skin was a skull that was perpetually carved in an expression of utter hatred, with twin curved rams horns extending out from the side of the head.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" shouted Solomon, the fear coming over his connection to his deck leader seemingly increasing a hundredfold. "WHAT ARE YOU?"

"THIS IS MY TRUE FORM," the monster's layered voice thundered, causing Solomon to grasp his ears in pain to try and quiet the noise. "I HAD NOT BEEN ABLE TO CROSS OVER ENOUGH TO MANIFEST IT IN YOUR REALM, BUT YOU ARE WITHIN MY REALM NOW."

"What are you going to do?" Solomon responded, barely able to hear what he spoke but noted a bit of the fear from his Deck Master had partially manifested itself within his voice. "Kill me?"

"AS MUCH AS I WOULD ENJOY DEVOURING YOUR SOUL, THE BARRIER THAT PROTECTS YOU AS YOU CROSS THROUGH THIS REALM DENIES ME THIS CHANCE."

A moment of elation ran through Solomon for a split second, only to be crushed in the next instant, as Manawyddan continued to speak. "IT DOES NOT PREVENT ME FROM THIS, HOWEVER!"

Sixteen spheres of light, eight red and eight white surrounded Solomon as the entity shouted the last word, the sound of which caused the Rose Duelist to involuntarily start to curl into a ball from the sheer pain. They spun quickly around his body, seemingly forming two crossing discs of Red and White each at a fifteen degree angle to the other, before hurtling Solomon away from Manawyddan fab Llyr with such force that the Rose Duelist blacked out.

* * *

 **I had the thought of creating a Duelist of the Roses/RWBY crossover fanfiction for awhile now, but reading through the Screw the Rules, I have Escalation (Worm/Yugioh) has brought it to a crescendo. As such, I finally decided to put it into words to at very least get it out of my head. So what do you think? I should note I'm going to be utilizing a deck I had gotten as a result of a playthrough of only the White Rose faction of a run I specifically went through for this fanfiction. I might put up a full listing of the cards he has within the next chapter, depending upon which route I decide to take with the story.**

 **I'm divided between two, one wherein he'll end up within Beacon before canon wherein he'll be replacing Jaune's entrance position (his fake transcripts were known by the Staff, if I recall correctly, and it is likelier he would be removed than Ruby, due to all the magic stuff around her. Besides, he can't use Aura at the start and when you compare that to someone who has a grabbag of powers ranging from summoning monsters strong enough to kill gods to causing an area to experience a massive earthquake or terraform it to a different terrain type, he's a bit lacking. Jaune would have a heck of a lot more aura, though, since if I translate Life Points as aura, any one of the cast could take Solomon out in only one or two hits if they get a direct blow). This is not to say it'll be a retread of canon, since I'd be using an RNG to determine who would end up as their partner/team in this timeline. Because the Butterfly Effect is a bitch.**

 **The other option is sticking him the middle of nowhere with his powers near completely choked off at the start. He'd soon come across one of the villages or nomadic communities outside of the kingdoms, and would use his powers to the best of his capabilities out there. Word would eventually get back to Vale and Beacon about him, which would drag him into the main plot of the series at that point. This one is a bit less likely, as I don't really have it developed at all and I would prefer to not have to make all too many new characters, which this would require a fair amount of.**

 **Would like to hear people's thoughts on this matter, though, as I am still undecided on the matter.**


	2. Chapter 2: Arrival via Storm

**General Area of Vale. Early Middle 80 After Great War (AGW).**

To the confusion of many, a massive storm began to manifest itself within the Emerald Forest near Beacon. Some regarded it as a freak occurrence of nature that had never before been seen, and rushed to attempt to record the movement of the clouds for later study. Others thought that it was a harbinger for an incoming Grimm attack, and hurriedly made their own preparations to defend against it. Many regarded the event as simply a curiosity and moved on. None guessed the storm was a result of involuntary interdimensional travel as a result of ancient magic of entities from beyond their current reality. Even those most invested in the study or just plain insane did not think of this last possibility, what had in fact truly happened.

While these preparations basically amounted to nothing, they did do some good. A few errors in the defense grid were discovered, and a large scale study of the entirety of the network was authorized in order to determine if more existed, to fix any errors discovered, and to reinforce the security protocols of the defense systems. In more immediate terms, it would mean that a Bullhead would be sent out from Beacon in order to go to the center of the anomaly, determined by the location where a massive bolt of lightning struck down at. Specifically, the temple within the Ruins of the Emerald Forest.

* * *

 **Abandoned Temple. Emerald Forest Ruins. Early Middle 80 AGW.**

The sheer force of the thunder of the bolt that carried him forced Solomon out of his unconscious state. Putting a hand up to his ringing ears, he found they hadn't started bleeding or had the feeling of dried blood, so that was fortunate. He groaned as he began to stand up, before he noticed a few things off. Primary was his connection with Tactical Warrior seemed missing. It felt strange to not have her presence in his mind after the several months of telepathic contact between them, almost as if a part of his mind had been removed. ' _I…really don't know how to feel about that._ '

The second thing he noted was the fact that surrounding him was a circle composed of something he had not expected to see. "What are these doing here?" he muttered when he saw both the Red and White Rose Cards forming a circle around him with an alternating pattern. "It seems Manawyddan's action may have had some side effects…"

As he placed his hand upon the first White Rose Card he reached for, a jolt surged through his system. For a brief moment, he thought he felt emotions of fear, sadness, and regret enter his mind. These rapidly shifted to confusion, before exploding into relief and concern, with a slight dash of elation and embarrassment only slightly noticeable. Solomon smiled. The telepathic connection with Tactical Warrior was reestablished, and it seemed she actually seemed to prefer it being around rather than being nonexistent. He had not been expecting the reestablishment, but he was glad that it was not against her will when it was. Collecting the other fifteen Rose Cards, he retrieved the box he had held them within during his fight against the Red Rose faction, and placed them inside. Fully standing and slinging the pack onto his back after closing the box and placing it back inside, he took a glance around at his surroundings.

He was in the center of a circular structure with six pillars, one broken near the base. Clockwise from the broken, two held a semicircular stone that was broken off just past each pillar. Further, the next three were connected up by a similar stone, a broken wall that ran behind the other two connected ending behind the first clockwise pillar from them. The stones on top of the pillars were carved in such a way as to make it appear they were broken into several segments. The pillars themselves were segmented into five parts, alternating between unengaged and engraved. Twenty short pedestals formed a crescent shape upon the circular platform Solomon was in the center of. Surrounding the ruins was a green forest upon most sides, with a moderately large clearing on the most open side of the ruins.

"A lot brighter and far more welcoming than the one Cade and I fought within," Solomon muttered to himself. "We could barely see more than a couple meters in that one." A pulse of agreement passed into his mind from his Deck Leader.

The Rose Duelist walked through the largest gap between the pedestals. "Any idea where we might be?" he muttered, to a negative response from Tactical Warrior. He sighed. "Yeah, I had my doubts he would send us somewhere either of us would have any familiarity with."

He turned his head to scan the surrounding area, and managed to spot something off in the distance within the forest to his right. It was an odd creature, wielding an appearance similar to a werewolf with a black coat. There were a few differences, with various white spines coming out from the body and a mask composed of the same substance that held two holes that allowed for bright red eyes to shine through. He noted none visible within the surrounding area in other directions, but a second showed up by the time he looked back. Both seemed to be staring at him for some reason. In fact, they seemed to be heading in his direction at a moderate pace.

"What odd natural creatures…" Solomon spoke. As they continued to approach, the Rose Duelist continued his commentary. "Think we should…?" he trailed off, knowing Tactical Warrior understood what he had meant. Almost instantly, a sense of smug agreement returned over the connection. Solomon gave a slight smirk as he slung down his pack onto the ruined temple and retrieved a single White Rose card, holding it pinched between his index and middle fingers. He raised it to his side before entering a chant in an ancient language, the approaching entities pausing in confusion.

This language was used to command the powerful magics of the cards and had originally been seared into his mind upon his first contact with the White Rose card Seto had given him at the start of his journey in fifteenth century England. A perfect translation to English isn't possible, but a rough translation of what he had said is as follows. "Worlds of Spirit and Shadow beyond this Mortal Realm, I call upon thee. Permit me to call forth your creatures and cast your ancient spells to destroy the forces arrayed against me. Have the master of my deck take my physical place within this world so I may soar through the world as an ethereal spirit. Let your power flow through and create a shield to protect me and my Deck Master in this coming battle. Open my mind so that I may speak with my Deck Master and those I summon without speaking. This I ask of you, through the authority granted by the power of the Rose Cards!"

Throughout the chant, the two creatures observed a strange effect occurring over the body of the human they had been stalking. As he had begun, an aura of purple energy flared across his form before many lightning erupted from the card in his hand and arced around his entire body, striking numerous points with many focusing on landing in the area around his heart. His form then began to bleed away, being drawn to another point where another entity, Tactical Warrior, began forming and leaving him standing as little more than a levitating outline of white energy. Both were surrounded by the same purple energy that had originally only surrounded the human. A sigil formed on the ground below the armored warrior of a White Rose surrounded by a golden design, partially hidden by the grass sticking through the ghostly sigil. A slight glow of energy sparked off of the now ethereal human and the warrior upon the sigil just before the chant finished with a spark of energy that dissipated the shadow aura of both entities and causing the card in the human's hands to disappear.

As the monsters began debating whether to advance or not, Solomon took an opportunity to take a glance at what exactly the creatures were with the sight granted by the power to call forth creatures. He figured this gift was a side effect of the power displaying how powerful each creature could summon and had active was not discriminating as to whether or not the entity he was observing was on his side or not.

' _Beowolf. Beast type creature. Dark attribute. Power ranking of 1000 attack and 850 defense naturally. Strengthened to 1500 attack and 1350 defense due to field effects,_ ' thought Solomon as he read through the description, surprise lacing his voice at the last aspect. ' _Odd to see a natural creature so strong._ '

' _And concerning,_ ' responded Tactical Warrior over the stronger mental connection. ' _It would be difficult for a sentient civilization to develop with such entities roaming around._ '

' _The ruins we arrived in are of sentient construction,_ ' Solomon thought back. He had gotten out of the habit of simply saying human civilization after long exposure to the creatures from the Worlds of Shadows and Spirits had showed him civilization wasn't unique to humanity. ' _There may be some some still around._ '

' _That is a later concern. What do we have to face them with?_ ' Tactical Warrior asked.

Focusing upon the connections, Solomon found the strongest five that marked the ones he could call forth were Hitotsu-Me Giant, Zanki, Battle Steer, Octoberser, and Yellow Luster Shield. ' _Only choices we have is Hitotsu-Me Giant. Rest require too much summoning power or is a spell that is only good if things are already out,_ ' Solomon responded as he flew back over next to Tactical Warrior. ' _Ready?_ '

' _Ready,_ ' Tactical Warrior responded, opening her mind even further simultaneously with the Rose Duelist, allowing for their movements and speech to become synchronized. They both raised their cupped right hands in front of them, energy collecting in both. As they did, they both spoke in the ancient language, voices overlaying, "Invoke. Strongest connection. Foreward." The two moved the facing of their hands to have their palms facing forwards, the two spheres of energy flying off in front of them. They fused into one and formed into a small vortex of brown and black in front of them. The Deck Leader and Rose Duelist cut down on the enhanced connection state as it became stable, the strain of maintaining it yet also keeping their identities their own dissipating as the eager voice of the cyclopean creature came forth. ' _Where'sthebattle?Where'sthebattle?Where'sthebattle?_ '

Tactical Warrior gave a chuckle as Solomon focused on managing the headache he always got after the enhanced connection state due to human minds not having been made for dealing with it. ' _Calm yourself. You shall be fighting soon,_ ' she replied to the now seventeen hundred attack monster. Noting the creatures were just in range of the enhanced movement provided by the forest bonus, she told Hitotsu-Me Giant, ' _Reveal yourself and charge the Beowolf Grimm directly in front of you._ '

The blue-green monster gave a gleeful roar as it charged out from the vortex. The vortex began to be pulled apart, its energy flying forth and filling out the physical presence of the monster as it ran. When it was fully materialized, it gave a powerful leap towards the surprised Beowolf Grimm directly in front of it. It slammed into the opponent, forcing it back a short distance. The cyclops landed and rushed forward with a punch that pierced into the creature's torso. The monster slammed its other fist inside and ripped the hole in the Beowolf Grimm ever wider until the creature disintegrated, to the confusion of Solomon and Tactical Warrior.

' _I know it is a different effect, but don't only summoned monsters do that?_ ' he queried.

' _Yes,_ ' Tactical Warrior replied with concern, the wings that framed her face giving a small twitch.

While the two spoke, the Hitotsu-Me Giant was attacked by the other Beowolf Grimm. Its claws scraped across the skin of the cyclops, dealing no damage besides causing its attention to change to the new opponent. With a roar, it lashed out, tearing the Beowolf Grimm's arms off and proceeding to beat his foe until it disintegrated. The beast gave an elated, echoing roar of triumph in response.

' _That was a good fight,_ ' the summon thought, with what amounted to a smile crossing its face, as it began to return to Tactical Warrior and Solomon. As it did, a sound began to filter in through the trees of the forest. Floating upwards, Solomon looking in the direction the sound seemed to be coming from and spotted an aircraft of an unfamiliar design approaching their location.

' _Looks like we have company_ ,' Solomon said as he floated back down.

' _I would not recommend exiting the empowered state until we can confirm what their intentions are,_ ' Tactical Warrior responded, experiences with machine type monsters in the past having her not question what was approaching. ' _We do not want to run the risk the required ritual cannot be pulled off._ '

Solomon nodded. ' _Makes sense. You'll need to do the talking for me at first. We should keep the possibility of startling them to a minimum._ '

The aircraft entered their current line of sight soon after, its engines tilting to have it enter a hover. Hitotsu-Me Giant standing next to Tactical Warrior at the entryway to the ruins, both in a relatively relaxed state, the former was moved to defense mode in case they were attacked. The craft paused in its hover, the individuals on board seemingly deliberating something before it landed. A small force began to exit the craft, in a combat ready state. The Rose Duelist gave a mental sigh. ' _This may be a bit difficult._ '

* * *

 **To determine the strength of the Beowolves, I had utilized one card by the name of Anthrosaurus. It seemed to be a fitting one to modify from. The reason I was using Beowolf Grimms rather than simply Beowolves is simply due to Solomon not yet knowing their true name, and instead referring them to the name given in the description. It may seem strange to use that specific title, but I did that for the sake of Grimm specific power-ups. I decided to utilize the existing types of creatures within the Yugioh game rather than making a 'Grimm' type for the sake of both convenience of not having to figure out how the Duelist of the Roses terrain would apply, and since the existing types covers a fairly good range.**

 **For those who are just reading the chapters and skipping any discussion, do not worry about me putting numbers to things. It's a bit too heavy in spoilers to detail right now, but suffice to say, there's quite bit going on.**

 **Thoughts? Comments? Criticism? Suggestion of who would be sent out to investigate Solomon's entrance? Prediction on who the dice gods will determine will be partners with whom?**

 **Deck list and a list of his available cards will be put up in the next chapter, due to concerns about how much space they were taking up.**


	3. Current Status of Deck and Other Cards

**I know I had priorly told people to visit the Spacebattles thread, but I decided to put it up in this chapter for two specific reasons. First is to be able to provide a listing to people who only want to read it on here, while putting it in a location able to be skipped fairly easily. As for the second, it is because I wound up rewriting the second part of the last chapter, as my mind kept coming back to feeling that it didn't fit. I now have it updated to something I like quite a bit more. The partial rewrite of the chapter is the area where he decides to fight the Grimm. Before that point, things are the same, so you can skip down to that point safely.**

 **Might as well also use this to reply to one point brought up in the review by xoverfiend on the first chapter. The reason for his more formal speak is twofold. First was a result that he was in the presence of the guy who was his mentor for a short time, the leader of the Rose Crusaders, which due to some dialogue I recall at the start of the White Rose path of you having joined that force makes Seto your boss as it were, Solomon is speaking to an individual with high standing in society at the time, and going by the historic character, Seto is roughly 106 or 107 years old. The second reason is that Solomon was in fifteenth century England and France for a couple months by that point and his manner of speaking was slowly affected both consciously, so he would stand out a bit less, which he doubled down on after getting found out by Mako, and subconsciously due to a large number of people he dealt with were speaking that way.**

 **As for life points, I've slightly tweaked it for the current state, but the principle is the same. The way it currently acts can be summed up as 'you can take x amount of damage before the magic is undone.' Seems a bit more fitting than how I previously had it.**

 **That's all I have to say, so I'll leave you with the card listings below.**

* * *

 **Current Deck**

Leader:

Tactical Warrior - 2nd Lt. Rank

Effect:

Maha Vailo

M-Warrior 1

M-Warrior 2

Swordsman from a Foreign Land

Harpy Lady

Berformet

Normal:

Blackland Fire Dragon

Neo the Magic Swordsman

Giltia the D. Knight x2

Axe Raider

Zanki

The Judgement Hand

Empress Judge

Hitotsu-Me Giant

Battle Steer

Master & Expert

Nekogal #1

Feral Imp

Mystic Clown

Invader from Another Dimension

Baron of the Fiend Sword

Two-Mouth Darkruler

Ancient Lizard Warrior

Amazon of the Seas

Cyber Soldier of Darkworld

Octoberser

Guardian of the Sea

Charubin the Fire Knight

Magic:

Sogen

Final Flame

Darkness Approaches

Yellow Luster Shield

Legendary Sword

Axe of Despair

Cyber Shield

Book of Secret Arts

Kunai with Chain

Paralyzing Potion

Elegant Egotist

* * *

 **Other Available Cards**

Effect:

Gate Deeg

Queen's Double

Normal:

Silver Fang

Wilmee

Snakeyashi

Grappler

Kuwagata α

Zombie Warrior

Beaked Snake

Kumootoko

Moon Envoy

Wicked Dragon with Ersatz Head

The Wandering Doom

Rock Ogre Grotto

Masked Clown

Griggle

Jinzo #7

Hard Armor

Magic:

Hightide

Earthshaker

Black Luster Ritual

Trap:

Eatgaboon

Fake Trap x 3


	4. Chapter 3: Initial Contact

**Abandoned Temple. Emerald Forest Ruins. Early Middle 80 AGW.**

As those who exited the unfamiliar aircraft strode over to the three, two in particular caught Solomon's attention. Both were middle aged individuals who seemed to have a fair amount of authority. The male had hair that had become gray over the years and wore an unzipped black suit over a buttoned vest and green shirt, while the female still had her blonde hair and wore a complex caped dress. Even from the distance he was observing them, the Rose Duelist noted that both would be quite a bit taller than him, appearing to be standing over a full foot taller than him. In order to determine how the fight may go if it came down to it, Solomon attempted to utilize the statistics observation ability upon the two lead individuals. Upon his attempt, he encountered something strange.

While the ability was only truly accurate when it was applied to summoned monsters, and to a only slightly lesser extent upon naturally occurring creatures, humans only gave a rough recording of their strength. The Rose Duelist had initially been confused as to why this was the case, but his Deck Master had been able to answer this question soon after he had first made such an attempt.

This apparent glitch within the scanning capabilities was a result of the nature of the souls of each type of entity. Summoned creatures only had a single part of the soul with the rest of it filling in the gaps to the limit of the entity was able to handle. This caused them to constantly be at their maximum, so long as the conduit to the Worlds of Shadow and Spirit were maintained. This resulted in them being unable to be harmed if they come up against something weaker than them, but something stronger would be able to break them near effortlessly.

Natural creatures were both similar and different to summoned monsters. They had all of the components of souls, but they were always near a state of full access as the souls were not fully developed. There was a slight bit of this power that was not utilized, which helped raise the strength of the creature when it was utilized, but it only resulted in a relatively minor boost in the strength of the creature. If given the right impetus and individual, it is possible the entity could develop to have a fully developed soul, and the benefits given as a result, but this was a difficult process that took up a majority of their life to perform, or many generations of development.

The reason sentients were the most difficult to get a read upon is that they had fully developed souls, but were only able to access a portion of it under ordinary circumstances. Some may be more naturally in tune with their soul than others, but even the absolute most in tune would only be able to manifest a non-field affected power of around twelve hundred through their body without utilization of any of a number of different varieties of magic or special capabilities, which his Deck Leader seemed a bit reluctant to inform him about, for the cited reason of their nature meaning there would be a very low chance to encounter them.

Knowing all of this, Solomon was extremely confused when he observed that the two lead individuals seemed to be having little to no trouble maintaining a capability around two thousand. This couldn't even be attributed to the active field effects, which should in fact have been slightly weakening them as they were seemingly considered spellcasters, which were weakened on plains fields. While this last factor slightly lowered the amount of concern Solomon had, as utilizing some form of magic would explain exactly how they managed to maintain such a state, it was still concerning.

' _If this comes to a fight_ \- _Calm yourself Hitotsu,_ ' Solomon thought over the connection, adding the last bit at Hitotsu-Me Giant's excitement returning at the first statement. ' _We may be in a bit of trouble. Leaders are a roughly twenty-two hundred and a roughly two thousand. Both Spellcasters._ '

He felt a slight twinge of fear coming from Hitotsu. While the monster did have a great lust for battle, even knew that it could only surpass a strength of twenty-two hundred if it was both on favorable terrain and had both the Axe of Despair and Kunai with Chain equips. Even with only two of those, the giant could only match that level of strength.

Tactical Warrior was much calmer and more focused than Hitotsu, already trying to determine a possible way out of it if hostilities broke out. A slight influx of energy indicating more summoning power was accessible helped remove the last bits of concern floating through her mind, increasing her focus a slight bit more. ' _Most probably aren't on the same level as those two. If we use Yellow Luster Shield as the conflict breaks out…'_

Solomon continued the line of thought near instantly, ' _Hitotsu would be able to defend against all but the absolute strongest individual as a result of the five hundred boost of favorable terrain and the nine hundred of the shield gifting him a twenty-four hundred defense. Higher than even the stronger of the two._ '

' _That should buy us enough time to allow for calling Battle Steer. Its natural eighteen hundred will be boosted to twenty-three hundred on the favorable terrain,_ ' the Deck Leader finished.

 _'We can't let them enter the forest,_ ' Solomon responded. ' _If they lose the penalty, their power will jump up to the point where we won't be able to beat them._ '

' _If it comes to combat, we will have to act to be sure to avoid such a scenario,_ ' the Deck Leader responded. ' _Keep some room between us and the forest as much as possible._ '

' _Sounds good. They are approaching reasonable vocal range,_ ' Solomon replied. ' _Let's try and contact them as best as we can._ '

' _Agreed,_ ' Tactical Warrior responded. She focused on the most powerful of the individuals and gave a bow, speaking aloud in fifteenth century English, "Greetings to you, individuals of great power. Would you deign to inform us of where we have found ourselves and what the names you go by are?"

' _Bit archaic for what they may have in this time period, but it should mostly work,_ ' Solomon thought to his Deck Leader.

The two and others with them paused, before speaking to each other in a language neither Tactical Warrior, Solomon, nor Hitotsu understood. ' _Or they could speak a non-English language. Really should have considered this possibility more,_ ' Solomon admitted. ' _Alright, if they don't understand that at all, then Modern English probably isn't going to work either. Anyone got anything else?_ '

' _I could try roars,_ ' Hitotsu offered.

' _Let's…let's leave that as a last resort for now,_ ' the Rose Duelist responded. ' _That has too high of a chance for backfiring and launching hostilities for my liking._ '

The others noted the apparent confusion upon Tactical Warrior's face, and seemed to try a different language. They returned to their own discussion when it proved fruitless. ' _I think I know one we could try,_ ' the Deck Leader said.

' _As long as it isn't likely to antagonize them, go for it,_ ' Solomon responded. ' _I trust you._ '

She seemed to struggle a bit in order to keep her composure for a few seconds, before she began speaking to the two in another language Solomon didn't understand. The group seemed to glance her direction for a second, then returned to speaking with each other after they didn't understand it.

' _I…I'm sorry. It failed,_ ' Tactical Warrior thought to Solomon, a tinge of sadness lacing her mental voice.

' _It was a shot in the dark,_ ' Solomon responded. ' _We have no idea what will and will not work. At least you had something to utilize. All I have is two variants of English and the magic…language…_ '

' _You don't think…?' Tactical Warrior trailed off as she came to the same realization._

' _It's worth a try,_ ' the Rose Duelist responded. ' _They're classified as spellcasters, so they do have a higher than normal chance of knowing it._ '

' _Let's see if it works,_ ' the Deck Leader said. She then spoke aloud in the language, "Are you able to understand what I am saying in this language?"

Most of the group were still unable to understand what Tactical Warrior had said, but the two powerful spellcasters did recognize what she had said. The male seemed to have some slight passing recognition of the language, but the female seemed to have enough familiarity to respond in the language. "Partially. Some aspects strange," she responded fairly stiffly.

Tactical Warrior answered a question Solomon was about to ask with a simple thought to him, ' _There are some slight differences in dialect and she seems to be unused to speaking the language. We probably sound broken as well._ ' The other members of the group seemed to be speaking to the woman during this short message, presumably about what the language was. Tactical Warrior interrupted them asking, "By what title should we refer to you? Do not give your actual name, as that is dangerous to do so in this language."

When the two thousand powered individual had apparently translated this so the others knew what was said, there seemed a bit of an uproar of confusion from a few individuals. ' _Huh. Well that caused a bit of a reaction,'_ Solomon commented. ' _We did need to mention that, but you don't think they would have taken it so seriously._ '

' _There are two spellcasters. They may have a fair bit of knowledge of magic and may not like the fact the only avenue of communication they have has a measure of danger attached to it,'_ responded Tactical Warrior.

Before Solomon responded, the woman responded stiffly with, "Refer me as the Professor. What title you have?"

"Leader," Tactical Warrior responded.

The Professor translated this for the rest of her companions and proceeded to ask, "Why are you with the Emerald Forest near grounds of Beacon Academy? Did it have something do with the storm?"

' _Considering a storm was a side effect of the ritual that caused my initial arrival to the fifteenth century, the opening of the gateway for Manawyddan fab Llyr, and the ritual that was supposed to have sent back to my time, I would say we would have something to do with it,_ ' Solomon thought. _'And Beacon? I have never heard of that before. May need to find out the year and country…'_

"The storm may have been a side effect of the ritual that had involuntarily transported us here," Tactical Warrior said to the Professor while Solomon was going off on his short rant. "What is the nation and the year we have found ourselves within?" she added after hearing his last comment.

The information that about a ritual that could send a person involuntarily to a number of locations in time and space caused a bit of an outburst among the group. Even managed to cause a fair amount of visible surprise in the expressions of the twenty-two hundred and two thousand power individuals. "Well they are certainly surprised. And we haven't even mentioned that we only exist on this plane due to being summoned, and the summoner is currently an ethereal spirit standing between us," Hitotsu spoke, accidentally speaking in the language that the Professor understood. This was translated and caused the confusion of the other group to grow a fair bit.

' _Well that did a bit,_ ' Solomon thought, observing the uproar that last comment caused. ' _Revelation of both a ritual that can cross time and space, and that there's a near invisible summoner of sapient creatures nearby._ '

When things calmed down once more, they now seemed to slightly notice the vague outline of Solomon standing between the Giant and Tactical Warrior. The Professor wound up requesting, "Would he be able become more…solid?"

Solomon decided to speak up. "I am able to, but it would require unsummoning both entities are currently visible. Given the last time I had been the target of a similar ritual, I was forced to join one of two factions in a war fought before the invention of guns for several months, and just before I had arrived here I was trying to battle against an entity that was nearly able to shatter my mind with the force of its voice alone, only narrowly sealing it in another dimension, I am a bit reluctant to do so at the current time."

' _It seems having a disembodied voice of a teenager talk about having gone through the time-space ritual, fighting in a war, and sealing a mind-shattering entity in another dimension does wonders for keeping people calm,_ ' Tactical Warrior commented on the eruption of confusion within the group.

' _Notably lesser amounts this time. Wonder if they are getting a bit used to this,_ ' responded the Rose Duelist.

The general confusion seemed to shift to a debate between the two high powered individuals. Before Solomon could inquire as to what they were talking about, the latter seemed to capitulate, and translate what he seemed to want to say. "We would like to make temporary offer to stay at the Academy so you can rest for recovery from battle you say happened. Would like to speak with yourself tomorrow."

' _…that is really tempting,_ ' Solomon thought.

' _At this point, you are nearing the point where you are only being kept awake by the magic of the Rose Cards providing you with energy,_ ' Tactical Warrior admitted. ' _It may be best to agree to it._ '

' _Really?_ ' Solomon asked in surprise.

' _Yes,_ ' answered the Deck Leader. ' _We may have narrowly been able to make it through a battle with them, but no more than that._ '

' _Don't think we've been forced that low before,_ ' Solomon admitted. ' _Granted, there's generally been a bit of a recovery time between duels and the Card Guardian was a more difficult one than normal… I'm going to agree._ '

' _It would be wise,_ ' Tactical Warrior responded.

"I'll accept your offer of providing me a place to recover," he spoke aloud, slightly surprising them after the extended silence. "If you let me return to my normal state, I will gather what little I have."

After translating for the rest of her group, the Professor spoke, "Do so, then follow us."

"I will," he said. Before he started the ritual, he mentally spoke to Hitotsu-Me Giant and Tactical Warrior, ' _It may not have been a long fight, but thank you both._ '

Both responded with a simple, ' _You are welcome, Rose Duelist._ '

Solomon chanted the exit ritual under his breath, to limit its ability to be heard and translated. "The battle has ended. I thank you, Worlds of Shadow and Spirit, for the gifts you have provided me with and only ask you return me to my state before the battle."

After the short chant was made, the various magics began to leave, returning him to his normal state. Hitotsu-Me Giant faded back into a vortex, which then proceeded to decay to nothing. The shield and sigil simply dissipated while the effect that had made Solomon incorporeal and Tactical Warrior corporal reversed. After the corporeality of his form, the White Rose card reformed his palm. He grabbed his pack, returning the White Rose card to the case just before he slung the pack over his shoulder. There seemed to be some confusion from them at how young he seemed to be.

He was directed onto the Bullhead, and within the hour he had been taken to what appeared to be an unused guest room. He removed the few non-cloth items from his pack and set them on the bathroom counter before taking a long shower to both get fully clean after his time in the past and to savor the first true shower, and hot water, he had had in several months. When he exited, he found what he had left behind had been taken, as he had requested due to knowing it all needed to be heavily cleaned, and what appeared to be the academy uniform had been left behind. "Must be all they had," he muttered as he put on the white undershirt and pants. He tossed the case containing the Rose Cards in the desk next to him, before hitting the bed and falling asleep near instantly. After having spent several months either sleeping against a tree or upon a bed of straw, even an ordinary spring bed would have felt wonderful, much less whatever they had made this one out of.

* * *

 **I apologize this took so long compared to the others. Besides several time consuming things manifesting themselves, the dialogue was a bit more difficult to write since I'm now dealing with second guessing myself fairly often about whether I have kept the canon characters in character or not. Slightly worse when trying to figure out how they would sound when barely decipherable due to a language barrier.**

 **Do note that all the stuff I had said about souls is not supposed to be indicative of any belief system I have. Primarily, I had just wanted a short explanation that gave the reader an idea of how the summoned monsters work, and give a short justification for why hunters do not obey the hard numbers of the Duelist of the Roses cards. Easiest way I could figure is to take the concept from the Memory World Arc of the Ka and Ba, then run with it. I did not give it those particular names, as Solomon had gone to Medieval England and France rather than Ancient Egypt, and I believe that denizens of the Shadow Realm and Spirit World would have their own names for it. Sorry it rambled on a bit, by the way.**

 **Reason I used 'in [language]' was due to wanting a shorthand to let people still understand what is being written without resorting to google translate, in the case of the language of magic, or so I do not screw up the grammar of variants of the language. Latter one was the primary reason for the 'in fifteenth century English', as I have little doubts that I would not mess that up in some way or another, and these individuals are supposed to be mostly, if not entirely fluent in it.**

 **As to why Glynda understands the language, it is due to, as a result of Manawyddan being a Celtic deity and the site of Stonehenge likely having been used by the Celts as a site of importance, despite them not having originally built it, I am having the dialect of the magic language utilized by the Rose Cards having been fairly heavily linked to the ancient Celtic language rather than the Egyptian utilized by the Millennium items. How does this link to Glynda? Her first name is based on the Welsh name of Glenda, and Welsh is a culture descended from the Celts. Further, Ozpin's group could be considered a bit into the Occult due to the Maidens, and as she is a part of it, there's a good chance she has looked into the past a fair bit. Pretty much this was a similar case to the temple ruins, too good of a coincidence not to exploit.**


	5. Chapter 4: After Rest

**Unknown.**

At one point while he slept, Solomon found himself in an area he had not expected to find himself within. It was a strange dimension that he had found himself in the aftermath of the Rose Duels, the only other thing present being what might be able to be described as a regular slot machine in front of him. "Odd…" he said, his voice ever so slightly echoing.

Taking a glance at the slot machine, he noted that it seemed to be composed near entirely of fake traps, but he caught the occasional glance of what appeared to be one of the Beowolf Grimm. "Very odd…" he muttered. Solomon slid his hand across the base of each slot, causing each to stop as his hand ran over the base. Two of them ended in fake traps, granting him only one card, but one of them ended with landing on the creature's image. "Interesting…" he said, as he returned to unconsciousness.

* * *

 **Beacon Academy. Vale. 80 AGW**

For a singular moment when he awoke, the feeling of an actual modern day bed below him made Solomon had thought the last few months had merely been an exceptionally dream conjured up from his subconscious. The slightly dull connection to Tactical Warrior led him to reject this possibility fairly quickly, which led to some unease and wonder at where he might be, as well as a small burst of homesickness. It was at that particular moment that his memories returned.

"Right. Beacon Academy. Now where is _that_ ," he wondered quietly. Standing, Solomon marveled at just how well rested he felt, compared to all the previous times in his recent memory, before shaking his head and chuckling. "Why does this surprise me? Most of the time I went to sleep, I was against a tree. Of course, an actual bed would make me more rested."

He noticed that his old clothes were placed on top of the room's dresser, and ran his fingers over them. "So that's how they feel like when they are actually fully clean," he muttered, giving off a small laugh afterwards. "I'd forgotten."

A small thought entered Solomon's mind about the possibility of lice, fleas, or any other insects having been carried along to...wherever he now was. This caused a minor moment of panic, before he recalled that, whichever one of the oddly numerous transitions the Rose Card magic utilized for turning him incorporeal and Tactical Warrior corporeal, both were incorporeal for the transition and only his clothing and personal items were affected by the magic, causing any insects that were upon him to fall away. Given how he had gone through both a full Rose Duel with Manawyddan and there was the short battle with the Beowolf Grimms, it was unlikely he brought any to Beacon Academy, at very least. While his pack was only on his person before the first of those conflicts, he had submerged in a creek for several minutes, with everything inside it with exception to the clothes he was wearing and the Rose Cards, removed from their case, in order to try to drown as many of them as he could. Solomon had another laugh when he recalled the first time he had done this, and had pushed his old phone past the point of no return.

The Rose Duelist noted that the Rose Pendant was lying on top of the clothing he had worn yesterday. He gave a slight glare and picked it up. "You goddamn fool. You should have paid more attention to where you put that. Who knows what they could have done with it?" he chastised himself, looking over it. There seemed to be no damage to it. He proceeded to tie it around his neck.

"May not have, but it would still be a good idea to check…" the Rose Duelist muttered as he got the thought that someone may have gone through his things while he was asleep. He grabbed the Rose Cards from their case and flicked them open into a fan shape. In the back of his mind, he felt Tactical Warrior return to awareness, giving Solomon a slight smile as he sent off the equivalent to a "good morning" and receiving one in return. Noting all sixteen were there, he slid them back into the deck form and returned them to the case.

He entered the bathroom where he had left the rest of his items, and began to glance through them for a second. Solomon's eyes flicked up for a second, and noticed something at the edge of his vision. Looking up fully, he saw someone he, at first, did not recognize causing him to jump back a bit. He would have laughed at having been caught off guard by a mirror, if he wasn't amazed by how much his appearance had changed.

His near black brown, curled hair had grown long enough to nearly reach the base of his neck. While mostly covered by a couple inch beard, he did seem to note that his face had grown far sharper. A quick glance to his brown green eyes caused him to note his gaze had grown a bit harder. It was not to the point of his cousin who had returned from military deployment, but it was still there. Beyond this, his skin had grown tan as a result of extended solar exposure over the past few months. When he looked over the rest of his body, the Rose Duelist also noted that he had gained a fair amount of musculature, not much compared to the sportsmen at his school, but a respectable amount, especially compared to what he had been.

"I didn't realize just how much my hair grew. Going to need a haircut, and a shave," Solomon muttered to himself as he returned his gaze to his hair and beard, Tactical Warrior seemingly giving off a surge of agreement. He gave a slight sigh. "Really doubt I have the capability to deal with that now, though. Likely only have enough to use the restroom and change. I'll try combing it out afterwards if there's time. Get it to some semblance of order."

Before he went through with the tasks he had set himself, the Rose Duelist first finished off the existing task of searching through his remainder of his belongings. The items had all been left on or, in the case of the short sword he had collected over his journey, leaning against the bathroom counter. There wasn't much, the cheap phone that had been destroyed in the earlier mentioned incident and he hadn't yet wanted to get rid of, a good quality leather wallet containing some old identification from back home and a combination of dollar bills and a modest collection of English currency, an old pocket watch he had been given by his late great grandfather that had somehow broke during the first batch of time travel, and a sleeved Celtic Guardian card he had with him when he was first sent back in time. It had been the first card he had gotten in the first booster pack he had bought with his own money, and he had taken good care of it when he was in the past, better than his phone, as he had never accidentally dunked the card. Solomon gave a slight chuckle as he thought about the coincidence between the card's name and his role in what occurred in England, before he began to recall the memories of the duels he had with his friends before his trip to the past. His face morphed into a sad smile as he wondered how they and his family reacted to his disappearance. He felt a bit of sympathy coming over his connection with Tactical Warrior as he began to ready himself for the coming meeting.

The Professor arrived while he was finishing running the comb through his hair, not yet having started on his beard. Solomon had changed out of the provided clothing, leaving it folded on the bed, into the brown cloth clothing he had bought in a small town a day or so east of Stonehenge under the armor he had gotten after an incident with some Lancaster forces during his travels in France. His shoes were the now heavily worn down gray athletic shoes he had originally been wearing when he first arrived in fifteenth century England, leaving the ones he had picked up in that time aside. He had a bit of debate with himself and, based on what he could decipher from what she could send over the connection, Tactical Warrior over whether he should have the Rose Pendant over his armor or not. The former was chosen on the grounds that there was at least a slim chance it may be brought up and he could use it. Besides, they already knew what it looked like.

"Are you ready for the meeting?" the Professor asked.

Solomon ran the comb through his beard a quick couple of times before he set it down, saying, "As I can be."

"What was that?" she responded, causing Solomon to realize he had responded in English rather than in the ancient language that was their only option. He thought he felt mirth coming over his connection with his Deck Leader as he mentally kicked himself.

"I am sorry, I used the wrong language," he responded. "Yes, I am ready."

The Rose Duelist was led to a central tower by the Professor, during which he only paid minimal attention to his surroundings outside of seeing what was used to mark his room, and an idea of the path back, in case he was to be sent back to it without a guide. Given their reaction to the information he had already provided them, this was a possible result of what could happen if he provided more in-depth information. Whether he should or not was a debate currently raging within his mind between himself and Tactical Warrior.

When he was led into an elevator within the largest tower, the Rose Duelist was a bit thankful. This debate was an especially difficult one to have over the limited connection they shared in his normal state. The Soul Corridor method was a better route for it, but he could not do that and keep walking at the same time. After taking note of the symbol that denoted the ground floor, Solomon slipped into his Soul Corridor, and knocked on the door marking his connection with Tactical Warrior.

As she opened the door, he opened with, "Just to be clear I understood you correctly, you believe we should reveal as much information as possible?"

"Mostly," Tactical Warrior responded. "We should answer the questions they choose to ask with what information we know. We revealed too much yesterday."

"Don't remind me," the Rose Duelist considered. "I'm pretty sure I would not have revealed as much if we didn't have to deal with Manawyddan beforehand. Considering how much we gave out, it may be wiser to keep most of the information to ourselves."

"At this point I do not think we can," the Deck Leader admitted. "With what was revealed, keeping information to ourselves is likely to put us in a worse situation."

Solomon thought over her comment for a few seconds before responding. "Compromise. I'll answer the questions they ask, but only what they ask about."

Tactical Warrior nodded after a moment's thought. "For the situation, that seems to be a reasonable policy. You may wish to volunteer more information than what they ask for on occasion, though."

"I'll keep that under consideration," Solomon said. "Keep watch on how they are reacting. You may be able to catch something that I don't."

Tactical Warrior gave a nod as Solomon exited the Soul Corridor, back to full consciousness. He noted that the Professor seemed to look at him oddly for a second, before the door opened, and her thoughts were cut off. She led him into an office with a large amount of clockwork above. Sitting behind the office's desk was the other individual of high strength he had seen yesterday, the one who had apparently been the one to offer him a place to recover. ' _Here we go…_ ' Solomon thought to himself.

* * *

 **I feel I should note that something I originally expected to put up in the third chapter. Just to be perfectly clear, I am not referring to the coming conversation within Ozpin's office. That was going to be the first part of the third chapter, and what I am referring to would have been in the second part. Both should be in the next chapter, at least, but this does make me wonder just how long this story will turn out to be.**

 **I've got an angle for the Grimm being accessible via the graveyard slots, besides just allowing new cards to be accessible to Solomon. I am curious as to what people are thinking it may be, so leave commentary if you think you have an idea as to what it might be.**

 **The point about the commentary on the lice, fleas, and other insects was simply in order to head off the possibility of having to deal with outbreaks of disease in the story. While it could be something interesting for a story to work with, I don't want to deal with it, personally. There are far too many butterflies that could cause. The story plan already derails two characters' paths before initiation, and the fact I am going to utilize randomizer on the partners and teams will derail even more. That amount of butterflies is enough for me, for now.**

 **I am curious as to what people think about how I made the more formal description of Solomon. It was a wild hair and I may change parts of it, but I am curious as to what people think of it.**


	6. Minor Feedback Needed for Progression

**I am currently unable to decide upon which background to use for the time Solomon originally came from. Now this does seem like a small thing, but looking into it, each option would result in the navigation through the conversation between him and Ozpin going differently. Things generally fall into a few categories.  
**

 **The first two would be in our world, specifically the current present day and the release date for the Duelist of the Roses game. This doesn't seem like much, but the latter has a slight quirk to it. The game was released in September of 2001, the sixth, to be precise. I don't think I need to mention what occurred only a handful of days later. Besides that event, it should also be kept in mind smartphones were rare outside of Japan at this point in time, the Playstation 2 was less than a year old and the original Xbox wasn't released yet, Wikipedia was only a couple months old, 4chan is two years off from being made, Facebook was three years from being made, Youtube was four years from being made, and Bill Clinton had been replaced by George W. Bush only a couple months beforehand. Pretty sure all of that would lead to quite a gulf in personality.**

 **There are three options within the Yugioh world, the 'future' portion of Forbidden Memories, the Anime, and the Manga. The future portion of Forbidden Memories, where you play as Yugi, appears as if it would be akin to a mix of the late 90's and the Early Manga. However, there's one key point to be made with regards to the world, and that is the fact that Reincarnation exists and frequently draws the same group of people together (ex. Teana/Elizabeth of York/Tea, Jono/Christopher Urswick/Joey Wheeler, the Pharoah/Henry Tudor/Yugi, and Seto/Christian Rosenkreutz/Seto Kaiba). This may be something that could potentially be used for direct effect on the plot, all things considered.**

 **Anime has its own slew of things that would have its own affect on his personality. The global attacks by actual monsters during the Orichalchos events should have some side effects, and the fact that the world wasn't wrecked by war in response to the missile attack upon the underwater base through use of a satellite missile array at the end of the Virtual World arc means that the planet either eliminated the practice of or never had to deal with Mutually Assured Destruction, or they have very reliable way to detect who made a launch.**

 **As for Manga, while it was a bit more subdued than the Anime initially, on the scale of the events listed above at least, a few things came up as a result of Dark Side of Dimensions being in its continuity rather than the Anime. This is evident by having removed the Kaiba brothers from the Ceremonial duel. As a result, its continuity picked up some very interesting things that would have side effects on him. I'm not going to spoil anything, but it can safely be said that due to aspects of the timeline,** **he may hold greater initial dislike of the Schnee Dust Company compared to the White Fang.**

 **Each of these would output a slightly different personality, which would in turn affect how he interacts with various characters (ex. a Solomon from the Duelist of the Roses point may view Blake as having gotten out of a Black Panther organization if he finds out about her connection with White Fang and treat her as such, while one from the present day may think more in the terms of ISIS. Further, a Solomon from the Forbidden Memories timeline may view Weiss as someone to treat with respect, while one from the Manga timeline may have the fear and anger at large corporations extend to her), which in turn affects just how the butterflies decide to flap their wings and affect how the timeline and plot proceed. As such, I really _need_ the feedback on this from multiple people. At the very least, the possibilities will be narrowed down from what I have. There are just way too many right now, and as a result of my mind providing me with a large number of possibilities for each, I can't really make much progress through writing the next chapter, because each of these have their own quirks in just how the conversation proceeds As such, I kinda need some feedback from others, so leave a review with your opinion on this. **


	7. Chapter 5: A Long Conversation

**Beacon Academy. Vale. 80 AGW**

Solomon seated himself across from the man already in the room. ' _Really need to ask for something to refer to him as_ ,' he thought as the Professor moved to stand next to her, based on the man seemingly having been the source of the offer for Solomon to recover here, apparent superior. ' _He has the card advantage as a result of how much information we gave yesterday. Let's see how he uses it._ '

The Professor translated the man's opening question, with a slightly resigned look barely visible in her face, likely from the knowledge that she would be needing to serve at that task for the entirety of the conversation. "Before we begin, I would like to ask the name you want to be referred to as. I do not believe you had mentioned it yesterday."

' _Innocent enough,_ ' Solomon thought before responding aloud. "I have been gifted a few titles in the past few months. The one I believe safest to use within this language is the organization membership title of Rose Crusader. May I inquire as to which title you would prefer to use?"

"Headmaster would be the most fitting as it is my profession in this school," came the translated response. "Rose Crusader, what organization would give you that title?"

' _Odd direction, should keep it vague,_ ' the Rose Duelist thought to himself.' _I have no idea what the context might mean to them._ ' "The Rose Crusaders were the allies of a family with a sigil of a White Rose during a conflict against a foe with the sigil of a Red Rose. If I am to recall correctly, I believe both were integrated into one singular family in the aftermath," he responded aloud. ' _If my interference didn't screw anything up, of course. Doubt it, the Rose Cards were perfectly balanced on each side when I arrived and merely stalemating the situation._ '

His thoughts caused him to lose focus on what their initial reactions to this statement were. Solomon did note that there seemed to have been some minor discussion caused as a result. As it began to die down, he decided to speak up, "I apologize for my interruption, but there was a question asked by Tact- Leader yesterday that I wish to know the answer to. What nation am I within and what is the current year?"

Solomon noted a slight look pass within the eyes of the Headmaster when his words were translated. The Professor spoke of her own accord to answer his question. "You are within the city and nation of Vale. The year is the eightieth since the Great War occurred."

' _This could be…problematic. I have no idea where we are,_ ' Solomon thought in response. Similar confusion originating from Tactical Warrior indicated she was unsure about this information as well. ' _And 'the Great War'? Why say that rather than First World War?_ '

The Professor interrupted his thought process with a translation for what the Headmaster wanted to say. "I recall you mentioning the ritual that caused you to arrive here could send you across both time and space. Given I have my doubts that you would only use it once, would I be correct to assume that you had been the target of it twice, once to take you from one time to another and a second to return?"

Solomon gave a slight wince as he realized where the Headmaster might be heading. "Yes."

"Further, it would be safe to believe that based upon your confusion, the Emerald Forest was not the original destination for your second travel."

Solomon gave a silent nod, neither him nor his Deck Leader liking where things were heading. ' _Goddamnit. Why did I give away so much?_ '

"Can you tell us where you were taken to and where your original destination was?" finished the translation.

"Kingdom of England, near the end of the Fifteenth Century of the Common Era, for the former question," Solomon responded a bit more curtly than earlier. "United States of America, near the end of the Twentieth Century of the Common Era for the latter question." Oddly, he noted unfamiliarity in both the Professor's eyes, and, once his statements were translated, the eyes of the Headmaster. He wasn't completely certain as to how he should feel about this fact. He mirrored the concern he felt from Tactical Warrior as he thought, ' _Just_ where _are we?_ '

There seemed to be a fair amount of conversation created as a result of what he had said. The Professor took out an odd handheld device, which was then pulled into two halves. A holographic display proceeded manifested itself between the two parts of the device. This both impressed Solomon, and caused his unease to reach greater heights, a very slight amount of fear beginning to be added. As the Professor began navigating to something within it, Solomon thought, ' _I haven't heard of_ any _device that has those capabilities. Not even something ideas just tossed around for the fun of it. Where and when did Manawyddan send us?_ '

The Professor seemed to find what she was looking for, the vague appearance of a map being partially visible through the back of the holographic device. She held it out by one grip, saying, "Would you be able to point out where the nations you speak of are located?"

The Rose Duelist accepted the device, unease solidifying into fear at an ever growing rate. "Alright…" he said as he began looking over the provided map and froze. His eyes then shot across the map, seeking for something, anything familiar, panic and fear ruling over his mind. At the edge of his awareness, his unconscious mind noted that Tactical Warrior had discarded her unease to act as a stabilizer for the turmoil of Solomon's mind.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, causing Solomon to freeze once more. The Rose Duelist knew instinctively that he would have visibly jumped at the question without Tactical Warrior's presence somewhat calming his mind.

"I…I don't…recognize…" he struggled to respond, voice low. "The continents they're…wrong…" He set the device down on the desk in front of him, trying to keep his arms from shaking, as he heard her translate it to the Headmaster. The Rose Duelist slumped in the chair, not registering what the Professor had next said. "Wh…where am…where are we?" he stumbled out, voice barely a whisper, sadness and fear thick in his voice.

Raw concern flew over his connection with Tactical Warrior as the Rose Duelist's memories began to run rampant through his mind, his awareness of the outside world dwindling as the questions began to drown his awareness. His mind flashed to his family, his mother and father, his sisters, his cousins, and he asked himself how much pain would they suffer through fruitlessly searching for what happened to him? He could never get back now. He didn't study the _fucking_ ritual that sent him through time! There would be no closure, only an endless fucking search…

Solomon's mind flickered over to his friends. He remembered how Miguel and Bennet had attempted to sneak aboard his flight out to Japan he was taking to take part in the Duelist Kingdom tournament after high placement in the Intercontinental tournament, only very narrowly avoiding being caught. He wondered how they would deal with his disappearance. He was going to be dueling Bennet later in the day. Might their friendship break apart from Miguel blaming him for it? Going by his knowledge of them, it was all too real a possibility…

His mind jumped over to a place that made him feel a sharp stab of pain. He realized he had barely thought about…her during his months in the past. They had been going through a bit of a rough patch before he left, for reasons that only seemed petty in retrospect. Solomon froze again. The tiniest thought whispered to him, ' _what if she blames herself for me disappearing?_ ' The very idea chilled him to the bone. She had a few more friends she could trust this time. He sincerely hoped they would be enough to keep her from going…there again.

The chill caused by those last thoughts combined with what help Tactical Warrior could provide in stabilizing him managed to bring the Rose Duelist back to awareness of his surroundings. Solomon sent his thanks to Tactical Warrior as he brushed a few of the tears he felt away. Looking at the Headmaster and Professor, he noted sympathy visible on their faces. He focused on keeping his composure, drawing upon the strength Tactical Warrior offered, before speaking. "I'm not from this world, am I?" he asked.

The Professor gave a nod. "It seems so," she responded.

Solomon nodded, the weight of that statement settling upon him fully and crushing the final doubting portions of his mind. "What is this planet?" he asked.

"Remnant," the Professor responded. The Headmaster said something to her, which she proceeded to translate. "What planet are you from?"

"Earth," he responded, keeping his voice neutral in order to keep his composure. There seemed to be a very slight amount of amusement come from both of them for a split second at hearing the name of his homeworld, before they quelled it. Recalling something from earlier in the conversation, Solomon continued, "I guess this explains why you had said the Great War rather than World War I…"

"Did you say World War _I_?" the Professor asked in confusion and slight alarm.

"Yes," Solomon said, not taking note of her tone. "It was a conflict roughly eighty years ago in my world as well that was fought between the European powers who controlled most of the world at the time. It resulted in around ten million dead, twenty million wounded, and eight million missing in action."

Not noting their astonished and horrified reactions, he continued, "World War II was roughly thirty years later and the more devastating conflict. It had an estimated sixty million as its dead alone. Five to six million were from the Holocaust. Both were bad, but paled in comparison to the estimates for what World War III could have been."

"H-how bad were the numbers?" The Professor asked, horror creeping into her voice.

"World War II's total dead only numbered a mere three percent of the population, two point three billion," he said, their reactions starting to pierce his focus of trying to recall the relevant information. "It had raised to five point eight billion at the time I had left. For much of the time between, it could have started, and thanks to the weapon developed at the end of the Second World War, it would have ended less than a day later. All governments destroyed. Estimates ranged from a majority of the global population being killed, to all life on the planet being dead."

He noted the silence in the aftermath of what he had said. Seeing the degree of the expressions they both held, he asked, "I feel as if I am…missing something…"

The Professor managed to collect her composure enough to respond. "The current global population of humans and faunus on Remnant is about seven point five million…" the Professor trailed off.

Solomon slumped back in shock again, the number repeating itself in his head. A realization then struck him, with the level of technology they display this would be a high point in their civilization. A number that humanity had surpassed thousands of years ago on his world, possibly before they were starting to understand how to smelt copper. This was followed by the realization that he had also just talked about two wars in which more people died than their world had in total population. "I...I'm sorry," he finally responded. "I didn't realize what those numbers might have meant here."

"You have nothing to apologize for," the Professor responded, the shock of the sheer scale of Earth's wars seeming to slide away. "It is…unexpected, but it seems your world never had to deal with the Grimm."

' _The Grimm? Is she referring to the Beowolf Grimms?_ ' the Rose Duelist thought. Noting he was seemingly stabilized in his emotions again, Solomon sent further thanks to Tactical Warrior before speaking to the Professor. "We had fought against some creatures by the name of Beowolf Grimms before you arrived. Are you referring to them?"

Seemingly arriving at a less disturbing topic, the Professor spoke fully at her natural tone, "Yes, though we just refer to them as Beowolves as there are more varieties than just those. The threat they pose has largely forced civilization to exist in only the limited abilities we have. Based on what you say, even some of the wildest speculation."

The last statement was only barely caught by Solomon. "Why are all these summons acting this way?" he thought aloud, the unease that was growing within him and his Deck Leader slightly lacing his voice. It was a different variety to earlier in the conversation, more laced with confusion and concern rather than fear and worry.

Both the Professor and the Headmaster were looking at him in confusion once his statement was translated. "Summon? What do you mean?" The Professor asked.

"When the Beowolf Gri- Beowolves died, the evaporated in a mist similar to summons that died in battle," Solomon explained, disturbed. "And last night…" he started, stopping himself for a second before realizing he had already started saying too much and continuing. "There's this one…dimension, if that is the right word, that I go to after battles with summons that allow for me to gain what was destroyed during battles that day. The Beowolves were on the…machine, for lack of a better word…"

Interrupting his train of thought, the Headmaster spoke up, his statement soon translated by the Professor, "How is it you know it is only summons that come up on that machine?"

"There's also a variety of spells and traps used by Summoners that can come up on it," Solomon admitted, his mind partially elsewhere.

"You've fought such individuals before?" Came the translated response.

"I have," Solomon responded. "I managed to be undefeated, at that. It was close a few times. _Really_ close on a few occasions."

"Was there any difference with the form you seemed to have when we arrived?"

"Not really," Solomon replied, mind thinking back over his battles. "Aside from it being their appearance and a color change to the ethereal aspect, there wasn't a difference I was aware of."

The Headmaster gave a slight nod, before saying something that was translated by the Professor. "Are there any restrictions over how far they can act?"

Solomon thought a bit before responding, "There was one that was fought over about thirty-something square kilometers of battlefield, but no monster got farther than about ten or fifteen from either of us, I believe, and that was a unique occasion that burnt him out completely. I managed to barely keep from doing so myself."

The Headmaster seemed to focus back on events. "Then I do not think that there are Summoners behind these creatures. There have been battles over greater areas, and no such individuals have been seen. Is it possible for them to be unbound?" came his next translated question.

"I don't think so," responded Solomon. "There needs to be something acting as a source of energy to keep the summons stable. There would need to be a direct link to this world for the power to flow through. Summoners are the ones able to initialize it. If you haven't seen any, that would need to mean that there exists a massive connection of energy, on the scale of the realm itself or a…representative…of…it…" he trailed off, an idea forming in his mind.

"Rose Crusader?" the Professor asked she had finished her translation for the Headmaster.

Solomon slumped back again. "I…I may have an idea of why the Grimm are so prevalent…." he spoke, tone filled with shock once more. "There are…entities…known as Card Guardians..."

"I haven't heard of any such beings," the Professor responded.

"That means it was hidden well. It is both good…and bad," Solomon replied, slightly dazed. "It has likely prevented things from becoming worse, but you have no idea what you are truly up against."

"What do you mean?" The Professor asked in confusion.

"They have an offer, a pact of glory, which has the possibility that an individual and a group they specify, likely family, would gain great power from summoning one," he spoke, not noticing their reactions. "However, there are various…other…factors to consider. A specific bloodline gets the best reaction out of them, apparently, but there is also the…temperament…of the entity to consider."

"The temperament?" The Professor asked with concern.

"My mentor spoke his family had once made a pact with one that was broken for unknown reasons. However, the one I personally encountered that acted with rage towards what was done to its brother some time ago and immediately proceeded to act upon what appeared to be the base desire of them," the Rose Duelist spoke.

"Base desire?"

"Sustenance. Based upon what it said, it seems to be devouring souls," he said, only realizing the effect it might have.

" _Devouring_ _souls?_ " the Professor said as she reacted with further horror, with a look mirrored on the Headmaster's face. This break in composure was largely recovered from, but lingering traces of the horror of it remained. The Headmaster then had a question that was translated by the Professor, "From what you've said now and yesterday, you had to fight against one before. Did you beat it?"

"Yeah, I did and it was sealed, but I only faced the weak form in battle," Solomon admitted, his voice slightly downcast. "I only faced it in the first few minutes after its summoning, and it was the toughest battle I had, and I got really lucky! I think I barely even scratched the surface of what it was capable of in that form. The one terrorizing your world is probably in their best form right now. I encountered it once, and it nearly _shredded_ my very essence with merely its voice when I was partially protected from it!"

As he slumped back in the chair, he heard an exchange passing between the two. After something was decided, the Professor asked, "Why is it you were so close to the summoning?"

Solomon winced. "My mentor was the one who summoned the Guardian I encountered, partially thanks to my help…"

"He betrayed you?" The Professor next asked.

"He didn't betray me," Solomon said. "I needed certain components to get me back home. He needed the same components for the ritual to summon the guardian. The components were not one use items. He promised to send me home after he had performed the ritual. We allied, and I was simply waiting until he was done so I could be sent home, which he tried to do after the Guardian was defeated."

Taking note of their expressions, he headed off whatever thoughts they had. "Look, I didn't know half the information I spoke about earlier before it happened. All I knew was that he was trying to fulfill a several thousand year quest his family had passed down to him. Further, he made an actual offer to send me home after he was done. The other faction dragged me into their mess to begin with against my will to forcibly fight for someone I did not care about, and they offered me no guarantee to send me home."

"How do you know he wasn't planning to use you as a sacrifice to this…monster?" The Professor asked with suspicion.

It was a reasonable question from their perspective, but it still angered Solomon. "I know for certain he wouldn't," he responded.

"How can you be so sure?" The Professor responded.

"He fulfilled every promise he had made me, and gifted me this," Solomon said, holding up the Rose Pendant and speaking with conviction. "This pendant marks that he had put his family in a debt to me where I am able to ask for any assistance I require, no restrictions. He was an honorable man and I do not appreciate the insinuations you are making about his character."

A short silence followed his declaration and the translation so the Headmaster could understand what was said. The Headmaster then spoke to the Professor, who translated the question for the Rose Duelist. "Back to before this topic, if you were able to fight this Card Guardian, would you?"

"All I own is quite literally what I came to this world with, and I do not know how the ritual to return back to where I came from," Solomon sighed. "Whether I like it or not, this world is now my home. The Card Guardian's actions are threatening the continued lives everyone who live on this planet. If I had the ability to challenge them and knew where to face them, I would go fight them in a heartbeat. However, I am neither know where they make their base, nor am I confident enough in my skill to go out and fight them myself…"

After it had been translated, the Headmaster had said something that the Professor disagreed with. It seemed reminiscent of the one they had had yesterday, only on a larger scale. Something seemed to be said that caused the Professor to capitulate and translate a question. "We may know of a way for you to become skilled enough. It will take a large amount of effort, however," she said, slight concern in her voice.

Solomon raised an eyebrow. "What is it?" he asked, curious.

* * *

 **I apologize for how long this particular chapter wound up taking to get put up. Portions of this chapter were a bit difficult to write, as they kept feeling…off. I still feel I could have done them better, but I think I've kept people waiting for long enough. I really hope that no other chapter winds up needing to take this long unless it is a really long one.**

 **The chapter detailing moments of the time skip over the period of time between the arrival and the first day of beacon is going to be in the next chapter. Place your bets as to when I'll get to the actual point that the partnerships and teams are determined.**

 **Recently decided to look at the trailers for Dark Side of Dimensions. My god is the animation just beautiful. I really hope there's going to be showings around where I live.**

 **Population numbers for Remnant may seem low to many people, but let me explain the logic behind it. Some calculations run in one of the Spacebattles RWBY thread (there'll be a link in the Spacebattles thread for this story) puts Vale as being roughly the size of one hundred and fifty six thousand square kilometers as the high estimate (trust me, we need this). Looking at a map of Vale, the agricultural district is pretty small, especially since it would likely need to provide for the whole city since Grimm would limit the trade ability we are familiar with in the modern world. So let's bump it up to 25% of Vale's land area is for food production, giving us thirty-nine thousand square kilometers for food production. Now we ask ourselves, how much land area is required for a human?**

 **Fortunately, there is a unit of measurement we can use for this. It is known as a Global Hectare. Now the footprint per person in our world is 2.7, but given higher technology, let's reduce the requirement to 2.2. Back to the calculation, the conversion rate from Hectares to Square Kilometers is 100:1. Using what is being used in this calculation, this means each person in Vale uses an average of .022 square kilometers. Now, dividing 39000 by .022 gives us the maximum sustainable population of Vale as being around 1,772,000, maybe boost it to two million with fishing.**

 **I can't simply multiply this by four to get the answer of what the population of the four big kingdoms are, then add in a few million for the settlements for one particular reason. Vacao's a desert, Mistral's in mountains, and Atlas is on a glacier. These are not favorable locations to grow food on a large scale. Fortunately for Vacao, they seem to be on the border between desert and greenery, so we can make an argument to give them a similar population to Vale, though without the boost from fishing. Atlas and Mistral, however? They can't do near as much, so their population would be much lower. Now, they likely have slightly higher amounts of fishing being done, and if we combine these with greenhouses, the argument could be made that their populations are around 750,000. This makes the current total around 5.25 million. If we believe there exist one third of the population outside of the kingdoms, then multiplying by 3/2 gives us the world population as nearly 7.8 million. Keep in mind this is maximum population, though, so a small reduction of a few hundred thousand would give us the number 7.5 million.**

 **People may think that lowering the amount of Hectares per person may give a more reasonable amount. There is one thing to keep in mind, however. The average for the United States is 8 per person, Norway is 5.5, Mexico is 3, and South Africa is 2.3. Yes, it could be lower, but they are already pretty low and pushing it further starts stretching the suspension of disbelief of how well off their lives seem to be portrayed.**

 **Feel free to poke holes in my logic.**


	8. Chapter 6: Time Skip

**Beacon Academy. Vale. 80 AGW. Two and a Half Months before Initiation.**

Solomon laid back on the bed in the room that would be his for the next few months before initiation. After his acceptance of the offer, he was sent back to his room, as they seemed to wish to speak about something. He laid back on his bed and slipped into the hallway of his soul room, where Tactical Warrior was waiting.

"Do you believe accepting the offer was the right thing?" she asked him, in English.

Solomon spoke slowly. "We really had no other options. We're on a world that we have utterly no knowledge of, with the only one person so far able to understand us being with that faction. I can admit that there is a chance we may regret it if another group shows that they may have been a better option, but as of right now our only other choice is a force seemingly bent on the annihilation of humanity and possibly led by a Card Guardian. That is a faction we cannot join."

Tactical Warrior gave a short nod, before speaking with a tone of concern. "Manawyddan displayed an extreme level of power when we saw his true form. Are you certain we would be able to beat whatever this Card Guardian is?"

"I don't know," Solomon responded with a frown. "We know he had to seemingly use the Rose Cards to send us here, but that's no indication of either his or the Rose Cards power. We do know a barrier of all sixteen can protect us from a Card Guardian's true form, but..."

"We don't know how to use more than one Rose Card or the dangers of using more than one Rose Card," finished the Deck Master with a matching expression. "There's also the possibility that comment was made as he only had limited time, and may mean this comment does not apply to dealing with this Guardian."

"So, we are up against a foe in the strongest form we know of that we only have the barest inkling of what they are capable of with only a very limited idea of what the capabilities we possess are. There is no way we can get any assistance from back home due to having no knowledge of just _how_ to get back there. As if that wasn't enough, we only own what amounts to the clothes I brought in on my back and have quite literally no connections with anyone upon the face of this planet outside of the two we just met, one of whom may be one of the very, very few that have any way of speaking to us due to us having no knowledge of any of the modern languages. And finally, we have no knowledge of the history, political landscape, major companies, technology, or anything else that people would have learned through growing up, which could result in people easily getting the perspective we are completely ignorant and we would not be able to tell them the real reason as the Professor and Headmaster probably want us to keep that a secret." Solomon sighed. "Is there anything I missed?"

"I do not believe so," Tactical Warrior admitted with a slight frown.

The Rose Duelist was silent for a few seconds before speaking up. "How are we still in a better position than when I first arrived in fifteenth century England?"

Tactical Warrior's expression shifted to a smile. "Well, this is an era that you are far more familiar with by comparison and now you have access to some fairly powerful magic."

Solomon nodded. "Plus, not starting entirely alone this time," the Rose Duelist said as his expression grew to match his Deck Leader.

"Do not forget that while English isn't spoken in the world and has no languages truly similar to it, that also means that it makes it perfect language to encode information in," responded Tactical Warrior. "Further, there may be some aspects of your perspective of reality that they have no context of."

"We are extradimensional individuals with really nothing to lose…" responded Solomon, his expression dropping slightly as the weight of being unable to return to those he knew began to settle on him again.

Tactical Warrior put a hand on his shoulder, and solemnly said, "The pain will lessen with time. It will never truly go away, but it will grow more manageable with time."

Solomon sighed. "And in the meantime?"

"Focus upon remembering the best times you had with them," Tactical Warrior responded. "And try to be the best person they thought of you as."

The Rose Duelist nodded silently. After a few seconds, he spoke up, saying, "May as well try." He was about to return to the regular world, when a thought entered his mind. "What is your actual name?" he asked. At Tactical Warrior's confusion, he clarified with, "When I had first asked what to call you, you had told me to refer to you as Tactical Warrior. I figured it had something to do with the fact I would eventually return to a time without magic."

"That was not the reason," the Deck Leader said, slightly embarrassed.

Solomon raised an eyebrow as confusion became the primary sentiment in his mind. "What is the actual reason, then?"

Tactical Warrior shifted about for a second before saying, "I can't actually remember the name I had."

"What?" replied Solomon, concern and confusion entering his vocal tone.

Embarrassment was evident upon the Deck Leader's face as she replied, "Most of the soul portions that enter into either the Shadow Realm or the Spirit Worlds do not remember their names outside a small number of individuals."

"Ah," Solomon winced. "Sorry I pried into that. I'll be going now."

"Farewell," Tactical Warrior responded as Solomon left the Soul Hallway and returned the conscious world. Noticing nothing seemed changed, the Rose Duelist sat there for a moment before a thought from earlier came into his head.

"Might as well see if there's something to shave with around here…"

* * *

 **Beacon Academy. Vale. 80 AGW. Three Weeks before Initiation.**

The past month and a three quarters was significantly more difficult than his first month and a half in Fifteenth Century England. The Professor, who had the name of Glynda Goodwitch, was the only one capable of understanding him, and as such had been assigned as his teacher by the Headmaster, who had the name known as Ozpin, for learning the Vytalan language. Given that this was likely taking her away from other tasks, the Rose Duelist offered to assist in the decoding of deciphered artifacts written in the ancient language that was how they initially were speaking with each other and to teach her English as she taught him Vytalan, for usage Tactical Warrior described it as. ' _Those offers may have helped her be able to deal with me,_ ' Solomon thought as he walked down the hallway back to his room, the thoughts in Vytalan. He by no means had the skill of a native speaker, but the teachings of Glynda had managed to allow for him to become at least a slightly competent speaker, reader, and writer of the language. There was still a long way to go, however.

That was one of the reasons why he was carrying a book with him as he returned to his room, as at this point it was a case of simple practice and memorization. There was another purpose to the book, as it was about a substance known as Dust, that seemed to be the basis of much of the technology of this world, in contrast to the large variety needed by the civilizations of Earth. While the cover story of him being from an isolated settlement that had recently been overrun could hold up under some aspects, the ubiquity of this substance required him to learn of it. Besides that fact, the knowledge of it was both near indispensable to the Hunters, as the force that fought the Grimm were called, and the Rose Duelist privately wanted to find out about why he always felt an ever so slight twitch in his mind when near areas where the substance was more common.

After arriving at the room, he sat at the desk inside it and began to read. Solomon read through the multiple types of the substance, ranging from fire to earth to gravity, and did not find anything similar to his reaction. He flicked to the section of the book on Aura, the unlocked shield of energy produced by the soul, and Semblances, the unique power of every hunter, to see what was mentioned on the topic of the interactions between it and those two factors. While not an exact thing, they were close enough to his powers the Rose Duelist thought that he might find something there. He found nothing except for information about how the substance was wielded by those with the capabilities. There was nothing listed that was similar to what his reaction was. ' _It's probably rare enough that I need something dedicated to the subject, which in all honesty, I'll probably be unable to read due to using a higher level of language than I know,_ ' the Rose Duelist thought with a sigh. ' _Wonder if I should just mention it to Glynda._ '

Solomon's attention returned to the book after he flipped back to where he was on his read-through before flipping forwards to the Aura and Semblances. As he continued through, he noticed an image of what Dust looked like and froze as the feeling surged forth for a few seconds. ' _That is_ not _Tactical Warrior reacting. Is it…is it my power_ itself _that's reacting?_ ' Solomon asked with confusion trying to figure out what exactly the reaction was. ' _And if so…why is it split? It almost feels as if one side is angry, as if it the Dust took something from it…how does that work? And the other…it's almost like its remembering bad memories. The hell?_ '

Solomon quietly spoke aloud, "What is causing this…"

* * *

 **Updates are likely to slow down to an unknown degree, as College is coming up and I have no idea just how much of my current free time that will take up. At least we'll be at the start of RWBY canon in the next chapter, so we are only one, maybe two chapters off from determining exactly how the random number generator ends up assigning people.  
**

 **This chapter was originally going to be a slight bit longer, but then I wound up noticing one single part of RWBY canon that wound up negating my ability to write that portion of the chapter. Ah well, it was an eventuality. You are unable to get strange coincidences all of the time. Honestly a bit glad about that after seeing the accidental connection with the Key of Solomon book having very strange parallels with the main character.**

 **Calculated the time it took for Solomon to learn Vytalan based on the 'How Long Does it Take to Become Fluent' article on the site known as Langauge Surfer. There's a chart roughly one quarter down the page that lists how long it would take to learn different categories of languages based upon a sample of hours of studying per week. I placed Vytalan as a category IV language for him, then calculating the number of total hours it would take, before dividing by fifty hours, that represent both dedicated study, and picking up what he can from conversations around him. That wound up being around roughly forty-two days. I then added another ten to represent learning to write to a decent degree, so roughly one and three quarter months. This may seem a bit fast, but do keep in mind that he is nowhere near being a native speaker. He can hold and understand basic conversations and write decently, but he is very likely to make grammatical mistakes and a fair number of words are still outside of his understanding.**

 **As for the explanation for the reaction the Rose Card power had to the Dust crystals...I'll leave that for all of you to deduce for yourselves.**


	9. Chapter 7: Meeting Ruby

**And after two months, a new chapter! Goddamn was that last chapter barren when it came to getting a response on it. Can admit that it slightly killed my ability to keep writing. Anyway, you are note here for my rambling, here's the new chapter, such as it is:**

* * *

 **Beacon Academy. Vale. 1 Day before Initiation. 80 AGW.**

* * *

The Rose Duelist walked out into the courtyard and watched as the Airship transporting the rest of the future students of Beacon to the academy. He was wearing clothing similar to what he had when he first arrived upon Remnant, though these were only approximate replicas as the originals had worn down over the months. Around his neck was both the Pledge of Roses given to him by Rosenkreuz and a pendant stylized after the back of a duel monsters card. This second Pendant contained a single White Rose card and was made after one of the very few ventures he made into usage of the cards that showed he did not need to hold the card in his hands, only required to have it on his person. The only other true attempts he had made with the experiments was finding the chant could be broken down into pieces so long as he started with a request to the realms of Shadow and Spirit and he was able to access more if he added the preface to the further request.

As the airship came in, Solomon admired the design of the ship. The wings folded back to allow for an automated docking process to finish the landing. Understanding exactly the craft flew was still beyond his capability of understanding the Vytalan language and his knowledge of engineering, but from what he was actually able to determine, it seemed to have utilization of a form of Dust that manipulated Gravity to work. ' _It is such a shame that it can't be used in some fields,_ ' Solomon thought.

When he had originally found out about the method of propulsion, he was excited at what such a variety could do for space travel. Then he found out about the six disasters that marked all of Remnant's space programs that determined Dust lost its potency as it exited the atmosphere. Given every single piece of technology, from computers to material science to power creation, this essentially stopped their efforts to go to space dead as a result of requiring near total redoing of everything they knew in order to do so. While saddening, the fact that Earth humanity, while doing things far less efficient and clean, had still managed to land on the Moon with tech far less powerful than a single Scroll, the device he had seen the map of the world upon was called, made Solomon feel extremely prideful of the humanity of his homeworld.

As the future students began to leave the Airship after its docking procedure had finished, Solomon wandered through the crowd. A few people at the front seemed to pause when they noticed him coming from the Academy, but once he got past them these looks died down until people generally seemed to stop noticing him. This was probably aided by the fact that in comparison, he was really short, standing around five foot four to five foot five in comparison to their height that averaged around six foot. This further meant that looking through the crowd caused him to see those he had seen were all taller than him with only a few as short as he was. He noticed Tactical Warrior seemed to be having a laugh at his expense as a result of this.

The sense that he would wind up being the shortest person within the coming year as well as the person with literally no connections with anyone, he noticed someone who was seemingly in the same situation, though the red caped girl only had to deal with being short due to seemingly having some existing connection with a nearby tall blonde woman. Granted, when she revealed a scythe that seemed to be larger than her, it did give Solomon and seemingly Tactical Warrior pause, with the thought simultaneously coming to their minds of ' _Where the fuck was she storing that?_ '

While the two were attempting to figure it out through the limited connection they had, the blonde individual who the red caped girl was speaking to hurried off for some reason that left the red caped girl spinning. This caused her to bump into a bunch of luggage that was nearby her, sending it sprawling everywhere. As a white haired female rapidly moved over and started yelling something at the girl, the Rose Duelist was snapped out of his contemplation to observe the train wreck of events in progress. This comparison seemed to prove more accurate as an explosion of what seemed to be Dust covered the area in electricity, fire, and other effects. A few vials remained intact, with a few being scattered around the area. One landed at the feet of some black dressed individual. The chaos ended soon after something that was said when the black dressed female had given the vial back to the white haired girl. The two left soon after for their own reasons, leaving the red caped girl a bit saddened as she took notice of that fact.

' _Huh,_ ' Solomon thought to himself after seeing her expression. ' _When she looks like that she kinda reminds me of…when did I start walking towards her?_ ' He was slowly closing the distance at a moderate walk and nearly stopped before seeing she had noticed him. Tactical Warrior seemed to give a small chuckle as Solomon continuing towards the red caped girl, the Rose Duelist having thought, ' _Can't back out now._ '

"I am able to see you are having a very interesting day," Solomon stated as he got close enough that she could hear him easily. "Solomon Rosenkreuz," he introduced himself, extending a hand. Having to utilize the name of his mentor was not something the Rose Duelist had originally intended. However, in an exceptionally embarrassing moment while he had been getting his entrance papers filled out, he had found out that the utter lack of use for the several months in England and on Remnant had resulted in him actually forgetting what it was. Not his proudest moment, or one that Tactical Warrior would ever let him forget.

"Ruby Rose," the red caped girl responded, taking the offered hand. "Nice to meet you."

Solomon paused for a second. "Really?" he asked. "You're last name is 'Rose'?"

"Yes. Is something the matter?" Ruby asked curiously.

"It is nothing much. It is simply that the word 'Rose' has shown up as part of the title or the sigil of a number of things I have encountered. Now, the very first other student I meet here has it as their last name," the Rose Duelist spoke before he chuckled while shaking his head for a second. "What did my life turn into that that doesn't even rate as one of the strangest things in my life," he muttered in English, slightly distracted.

"What was that?" Ruby asked, snapping Solomon out of his musings.

"Sorry," he responded, somewhat sheepishly. "I had slipped into my native language for a sentence. It wasn't anything important." Quickly searching his mind for something to change the topic away from himself, he recalled the weapon she had wielded. "Hey, I seem to recall you having pulled out a scythe when you were talking to someone. "

Ruby's disappointment at Solomon's refusal to elaborate on what he had said vanished in an instant, replaced by extreme excitement. After stabbing it into the ground, she went on an exceptionally fast tirade about the weapon, one that Solomon's skill in the Vytalan language was insufficient for keeping up with it.

"Uh, Miss Rose?" he attempted to interrupt, but she seemed lost what she was saying. "Miss Rose?" he attempted again, to the same effect. "Ruby!" he said at a low shout, snapping her out of it. Returning to his prior tone, he continued, "Would you kindly slow down? I am not a native speaker. I cannot keep up with what you are saying."

"Sorry," she responded, in a mixture of sadness and embarrassment.

"It is not your fault," Solomon responded, carefully thinking over the words he would use. "I have been taught enough to be past the point it is easy to tell I am not a native speaker." Taking a quick glance around and noting the lack of people, he continued, "We may want to make our way to the auditorium while you do so. Most seem to have already headed that way."

Ruby nodded and sheathed her scythe before beginning her speech again, keeping focus on preventing her speed of speech from being incomprehensible. Even with this, however, he was not able to fully keep up as a result of her diving into numerous, presumably technical, words he did not know. However, Solomon was able to get a general idea of what weapon, a hybrid sniper rifle and scythe she called Crescent Rose that was able to transform between a set of modes optimized for storage, sniping, and melee, was capable of. There was one detail that caught him further off guard than expected.

"Wait, did you just state that uses half-inch diameter ammo?" he asked in disbelief mirrored by Tactical Warrior for differing reasons. "And you built that weapon yourself?"

"Yep. To both questions," she stated cheerfully. A questioning look came across her face when she noticed his expression and asked, "Is something the matter?"

"Sorry," he responded, slightly embarrassed. "That size of ammunition and custom weapons is not common where I come from."

"Really? What weapon do you use then?" she asked, interested.

"I only have a basic knife and a one-third inch bullet pistol," he replied, choosing not to mention the Rose Cards, to Tactical Warrior's subtle agreement.

"What?" Ruby shouted in shock. "That's _it?_ "

"It is all I need. My semblance is…abnormal...to say the least." Solomon responded sheepishly. "It makes personal use of a weapon difficult in any use other than a last resort."

This answer did not lead to a reduction in Ruby's shock. "But…but…what semblance could possibly make you want to discard the extension of yourself a weapon represents?" she asked.

Solomon recalled the various times Tactical Warrior had used the same phrase during the times she attempted to teach him how to use a sword. He felt Tactical Warrior barely suppressing her laughter as the memories of his…attempts returned. Solomon himself instead grew embarrassed. Realizing he was in the company of someone else, he attempted to suppress it, but he knew it was likely she had already noticed. "It is…a very complicated thing," he responded, the embarrassment not fully gone. "There are…features of it that the headmaster said should not be possible when I spoke with him about it during the time I was here learning Vytalan." Looking around for something to switch the topic to, the Rose Duelist noted they were getting close to the auditorium. "Talking about it would take too long and we are close to arriving at the auditorium. I believe you will want to meet with that blonde haired person I saw you speaking with earlier. Maybe we would be able to speak about this later?"

The mention of the blonde-haired person seemed to distract Ruby a bit. "Oh, that's my sister Yang," she said as they entered the auditorium. At the instant she mentioned the name, someone called out for her. Glancing at the direction, Solomon noticed it was the same person as earlier.

"Looks like I gotta go. I'll see you after the ceremony!" Ruby said, leaving as she spoke.

"Fare well, Miss Rose," Solomon responded, before heading off in a different direction to find a good point to observe the headmaster's speech. After a few minutes, the man in question walked onto the auditorium's stage, Glynda beside him.

"I'll... keep this brief," the Headmaster started. "You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction." Many of the other students began whispering at this. "You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

Solomon noted Tactical Warrior seemed to be impressed with the speech. ' _That is sure to leave an impression on everyone,_ ' the Rose Duelist mentally mused.

Glynda took over at the microphone after Ozpin's speech, giving a short set of instructions. "You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed."

* * *

 **Finally managed to get back around to this. I apologize if some sections seem a bit off, as I've worked on this in short bursts over the past two months at this point. Things just kept falling togetherin in a way that felt weird. At this point, I just want to get this posted.**

 **In a tangent, I have a minor question for everyone. Given Grimm are attracted by the darker emotions of humanity, what would Dubai during the events of Spec Ops: the Line do to them?**

 **And in another tangent, how would the Faunus have come to be from an evolutionary standpoint? The question has been bugging me, and I keep coming back to it.**


	10. Chapter 8: Night before Initiation

**Beacon Academy. Vale. Night before Initiation. 80 AGW.**

* * *

Solomon didn't even need to look into the ballroom to notice that it would be impossible to go into a trance to speak with Tactical Warrior. While a near instantaneous shift in perspective was easy to achieve thanks to the Rose Cards, the Rose Duelist did wanted to avoid showing off their abilities in public. This meant that he would need to utilize the other methods, necessitating a measure of focus upon the trance. While not as great as it was when he first started practicing the method, the level of focus he required still wasn't possible with the number of people and the, while somewhat low, still present noise of conversation.

Still, it was late enough he was unable to head anywhere else, so he moved to the back wall and sat against it crosslegged, proceeding to attempt to achieve the requisite focus. It took some time, but eventually the external stimuli began to fade and the ordinarily ignored internal stimuli rose. As he began to reach the level required to enter his soul. Until he heard someone speak to him, interrupting his focus and snapping him back to reality.

Knowing that Solomon turned his head upwards and took note of a yellow haired individual who seemed familiar had likely been the person to interrupt him from his meditation. "What can I help you with, Miss…" he stated after he stood up. ' _Fucking hell, why am I so short here?_ ' the Rose Duelist thought as he had to look up a fair degree in order to look the woman in the eye.

"Yang Xiao Long," the blonde responded.

"Solomon Rosenkreuz" Solomon asked, recalling the name Ruby had mentioned. He noted she was wearing different clothing than earlier. "Are you the sister of Ruby Rose?

"That's me," Yang answered cheerfully. "She's how I heard about you, in fact."

' _Wonder what the story is of why they have separate names,_ ' he thought. ' _Actually, that's none of my business._ ' "I can admit that I have not seen twins with as disparate appearances as the two of you before," he replied.

Yang was confused by his comment for a second, before realizing what the Rose Duelist had meant. "Oh, no, she was brought ahead two years," she replied.

While Solomon himself was impressed, he noted that Tactical Warrior seemed to be even more impressed. ' _Tac probably knows more of how significant that jump is, so if it's impressing her that much…_ ' he trailed off. "Miss Rose must be an exceptionally gifted fighter," he finished the thought aloud.

"Miss Rose?" Yang asked, a mischievous glint in her eye.

' _What is she thinking of?_ ' Solomon mused, noting that, for some reason, Tactical Warrior seemed to be having a bit of a chuckle at his reaction. Collecting his thoughts, the Rose Duelist responded, "She had not requested I call her by only her first name. It would be disrespectful to do so."

She seemed to be weighing something within her mind at this response, speaking up after a few seconds with, "I'm pretty sure she would be fine with you calling her by her first name."

"That may be the case, but her accomplishment of being capable enough to skip two years means she is deserving of a fair amount of respect," Solomon responded. "Until such a time as she gives her explicit permission for me to do so, I will continue to be referring to in more formal terms." Tactical Warrior seemed to be outright laughing now. ' _Just what do you notice…_ ' he thought after noting her reaction.

A mixture of emotions existed within Yang's expression, the sum effect giving her a serious disposition. "How is it you regard my sister?" she asked, her tone matching her expression.

Solomon noted Tactical Warrior's mindset shift to convey concern and wariness, almost as if she was telling him to be careful. Solomon stroked his chin as he collected his thoughts to determine what would be the best thing to say to the quite protective blonde. "She is an acquaintance with a great amount of combat skill," the Rose Duelist responded carefully.

"That's it?" Yang asked in the same tone.

"I acknowledge she has a quite protective sister, if that is what you are asking." he responded carefully. "I have only met her once, so I do not yet know her enough to apply any other term."

Yang gave Solomon an odd look, seemingly considering something. Whatever the thought was, it seemed to be cut off by a familiar voice speak up, "Oh hey, I see you two met each other."

"Greetings, Miss Rose," the Rose Duelist spoke as Yang looked like a deer in the headlights for a second from Ruby speaking up. ' _Seems she wasn't expecting Miss Rose to interrupt,_ ' Solomon thought to his and Tactical Warrior's mutual amusement. Yang was able to narrowly get her expression under control before Ruby was able to notice it.

"Hey little sister," Yang greeted.

"What were you two talking about?" Ruby asked innocently, seeming to cause Yang to panic for a second.

"Miss Xiao Long was telling me a little about your accomplishments after introducing herself, Miss Rose," Solomon said, noting that Yang seemed slightly relieved. He remained confused and Tactical Warrior seemed incredibly smug, presumably seeing something he didn't."

"You don't need to call me that," Ruby responded, apparently slightly embarrassed. "You can call me Ruby."

"Call me Yang," the elder sister responded with greater confidence than the younger.

"I shall do so if you refer to me as Solomon," he replied with a slight bow.

"Hey, I wasn't able to find you earlier, where were you at?" Ruby inquired.

"I was helping with a translation of a work written in a very old language…certain events…led me to have a great amount of knowledge of," Solomon explained. "I would rather not try to explain."

Ruby was slightly disappointed at the latter statement, before perking up. "Would you be able to explain your semblance then? There's time now."

"Right…" he replied, trailing off nervously.

"Something the matter?" Yang asked.

"I have never had to actually directly describe it," he said with a chuckle while shaking his head. "People either already knew about the details already or had directly witnessed it and did not need any further explanation. Probably easier for you to see it in use during initiation…"

"Really, that's what you're going with?" responded Yang skeptically while Ruby looked disappointed.

"A single part of it allows for me to go intangible if I transfer my aura to an entity I summon," Solomon stated to both of their shock. "I did say that it was considered abnormal," he continued slightly sheepishly.

"That's only _one_ part?" Ruby responded in sheer disbelief.

"That's impossible," Yang spoke in the same tone.

The Rose Duelist gave a small smirk and responded with a slightly smug, "You will be seeing my capabilities during initiation if you do not believe me."

"We'll hold you to that," Yang said, crossing her arms.

Furrowing his brow, Solomon asked, "I am curious. Would you kindly inform me as to what your semblances are?"

"Speed," Ruby responded cheerfully.

"The more I am hit, the stronger I get," Yang stated nonchalantly.

Solomon chuckled and shook his head before saying, "If only I were able to summarize mine so simply."

His minor laughter was stopped dead when Ruby asked, "Where are you from?"

"It is…not important," Solomon responded as he lowered his gaze to the ground, a hint of loss and sorrow lacing his voice as memories came to him. "There is no point to attempt to go there anymore." Months had eased the sting of the memories and it was further reduced as he noted Tactical Warrior was giving him the mental equivalent of a hand on the shoulder, but there were still traces. The Rose Duelist was fairly certain it would never go away.

After shaking his head to brush the emotions away, he raised his head and noted something within the expressions of the two others. At first he thought it was sympathy, but after noting Tactical Warrior seemingly having come to a different conclusion, he soon saw that it was instead a different emotion, empathy. Solomon had a slight feeling of guilt, and said ' _I know the cover story is that I am from a destroyed settlement outside the walls and I am only implying such a scenario, but it still feels wrong using such a cover in front of someone who seemed to have someone in their lives lost_.'

"I'm sorry for bringing it up," Ruby apologized.

Solomon sighed. "It is not your fault," he responded. "There is no possible way I can see you could have known the information before now."

"That obvious?" Yang asked a bit sheepishly.

"Not really," he responded carefully. "I had to take a second look at your expressions in order to notice. Most people would not look that far." Preempting their potential next statement, Solomon finished with, "I do not wish to pry into the tragedy you had to deal with. I know such things are not lightly spoken of."

Both nodded in understanding, leaving a slightly awkward silence in the aftermath. "There isn't too much that can be said after that," Yang eventually spoke up.

"I probably could have been a bit more careful with my word choice," Solomon admitted with a shrug. "It is doubtful we can recover the conversation at this point in time. Maybe we could continue speaking tomorrow?"

"Okay…" Ruby agreed sadly.

"Just try to make sure we can actually find you this time," Yang lightly teased, leaving Ruby slightly aghast for a split second before Solomon started chuckling.

"May you have pleasant dreams this night, Ruby and Yang," Solomon said.

"You as well," Ruby responded cheerfully as she left.

"'Night," Yang stated as she walked with her sister.

A low conversation seemed to start between them as Solomon returned to his crosslegged meditative state. Over the course of their conversation, the level of noise in the room had decreased, so it was far easier for Solomon to collect his focus and shut out external stimuli. He easily progressed past the point where he had been when Yang had first gotten his attention, and he was soon shut off from virtually all external stimuli.

The sounds of his steady breathing increasing in volume as his internal focus grew. Soon, he felt his blood flowing through his entire body, from his feet to his head. Following the blood with his focus, he came to his heart and its steady beat echoing across his mind. Attuning himself to it, the Rose Duelist slipping fully into his soul's hallway.

Solomon took a quick glance into his soul room, letting it rebalance his mind in the strange way only the room could do. Turning towards the door marking his link with Tactical Warrior, Solomon noted her standing in the open door. Wordlessly, he closed his door and followed her to a segment of her room with a table inlaid with a battlefield. As both were seated, the magic within the table activated and left two figures identical to Tactical Warrior upon opposing sides of the field.

"Terrain?" Tactical Warrior asked.

"Let's leave it upon basic for now," Solomon responded. "It has been awhile since we dueled each other."

"Roughly a week ago on the toon corridor, wasn't it?" Tactical Warrior replied, gesturing to him. "It seems you have the first move."

Solomon gave a nod as he moved his leader forwards. "Yes," Solomon answered as he perused the selection he had available. "Was difficult to turn around once you were on the losing side," the Rose Duelist continued as he fused two cards, advancing the newly summoned face-down card forwards after it came into play. He waved the turn to Tactical Warrior.

"Gate Deeg proved to be quite useful to you," Tactical Warrior responded, looking over her options. "A slight shame we had to remove Invader from Another Dimension to add it," she finished with a slight chuckle. She proceeded to junk one of the cards before summoning a fusion to the left of her Leader, from Solomon's perspective, before advancing the card. She waved the turn over to the Rose Duelist.

"It may have been neat to keep that card. Could have been an invader bringing in another invader," Solomon responded with a slight smile. He set a card behind his leader before advancing both his leader and fusion towards Tactical Warrior's side of the board. "What do you think of Ruby and Yang?" the Rose Duelist asked as he finished his turn.

"Ruby's skill with her weapon is quite spectacular," Tactical Warrior commented, looking over her selection with a stern eye.

"She skipped two years, of course it should be," the Rose Duelist spoke.

"Precisely," Tactical Warrior responded as she moved her leader to the Rose Duelist's left, behind her fusion, and flipped the fusion to defense rather than advancing it. "Her weapon seems as if it needs a different combat style than most, especially given its size in comparison to her mass. The scythe is also an unusual weapon for melee, meaning there would be few teachers."

"It being a sniper rifle would only add to the difficulty of the weapon's use," Solomon informed as he looked over his selection. "It is a weapon designed for long ranges and a fair amount of skill is needed to be accurate at the ranges it operates on."

"What's the maximum range?" Tactical Warrior inquired as Solomon advanced his leader to his left and fusion summoned another monster, advancing both it and his first fusion.

"Depends upon the model," Solomon admitted as the turn passed to Tactical Warrior. "I seem to recall there were a few shots made over a mile back on Earth with some models. I don't know how many were in the .50 caliber range, but I do know that size bullet can pierce multiple inches of steel."

Tactical Warrior's face easily betrayed how much she was impressed. "Quite a powerful weapon, then. It speaks a fair bit to her sill that she is able to utilize the wide range gap effectively enough to skip two full years of training." Tactical Warrior summoned a card in front of Solomon's first fusion.

"It certainly does," Solomon commented, slightly smug as Tactical Warrior grimaced when it was revealed his fusion was Judge Man, a full hundred stronger than her Empress Judge summon.

"Still," Tactical Warrior continued, after restoring her composure and moving away her leader. "She seems a bit…less mature than I am used to. Both of them do."

Solomon chuckled. "Remember what _I_ was like when I first was transported to the fifteenth century? You know, joining with the Rose Crusaders out of petty vindictiveness rather than listening to the arguments."

Tactical Warrior laughed as she remembered, "Then there was you adjusting from modern student to medieval nomad."

"Oh god, that whole debacle," he responded laughing. "Wasn't helped by how awkward we were with each other at the time."

"Neither of us could barely speak with each other, what with how new we both were to it," Tactical Warrior continued laughing.

"Don't forget my awkwardness around girls," the Rose Duelist said, continuing the laughter. "Every time I tried, I stumbled over every word!"

Both laughed for a bit of time before it finally died down. "And now a good amount of the strongest cards you have are female monsters," Tactical Warrior said with the occasional chuckle. "As well, the first few other students you have met are all female."

"Indeed," Solomon commented as he finished regaining his composure. "Still, as I was going to say, you can't forget that there aren't the same pressures to grow up as fast as there were in the fifteenth century. May be slightly more than back where I live due to the presence of the Grimm, but there is a little less pressure to do so as quickly," he continued, finally making a move. He had Judge Man attack Tactical Warrior's defense position fusion, revealing it to be Nekogal #2. He further began movements to box Tactical Warrior's leader against the corner.

"That is true," Tactical Warrior admitted with a frown upon seeing she was out of options and used Final Flame to at least deal some damage to Solomon. "I guess there's some stuff to adjust to still."

"We both probably need to," Solomon said as he moved his pieces into position to box her in against the corner. "Still, now that we are around some people that aren't a decade older than me, we should be able to start soon. Concede?"

"Concede," Tactical Warrior said. A slight steel entered her voice as a her expression shifted to a promise of vengeance, saying "You will not win the next game."

Seeing her expression, Solomon chuckled, "Yes, I very much doubt I will."

* * *

 **This chapter was oddly a bit of a chore to work through. Hopefully I didn't mess anything up when I tried to push my way through it.** **I wish to note that, if anyone can come up with a team with the greatest number of coincidental similarities to the three Duelist of the Roses deck leaders I got with the name Solomon, I may use that team rather than the RNG. For reference, aside from Tactical Warrior/Command Knight, there was also Thunder Nyan Nyan and Serpentine Princess.**

 **Also, here's few thoughts I had while working on this chapter that I haven't been able to get rid of:**

 **Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising Revengence being dropped into RWBY, fully healed after his fight with Raiden. Just how much would that mess things up?**

 **In another line of thought, doesn't the Malefic Red-Eyes Black Dragon look a bit like a Grimm and the regular Blue Eyes White Dragon look like the antithesis of a Grimm?**

 ** **Also, just noticed the 'two brothers' religion, the Grimm were created by one of them, and humanity was created with both light and darkness. Well then.****


	11. Chapter 9: Initiation, Part 1

**Beacon Academy. Vale. Day of Initiation. 80 AGW.**

It was early in the morning when Blake Belladonna entered into the cafeteria, early enough she thought she had been the first person awake. This seemed to be supported by the feline Faunus having not seen anyone awoke from their sleeping bags or encountered anyone in the hallway. Upon getting her food, however, this assumption was challenged. ' _Where did he come from?_ ' she thought, confused.

Blake saw a man seated at one of the cafeteria's tables, slowly eating his food. For a second, she struggled to place him, before recognizing that he was the person that had been meditating against one of the walls. She nearly turned away, before feeling that something seemed to be off about him. At first the feline Faunus attributed it to the fact he now had a strange rectangular pendant hanging from his neck that had a strange black and brown swirling pattern upon it, but as she kept observing him, that did not seem to be it.

Moving closer, Blake noted his eyes seemed to an unfocused gaze, despite his apparent intense focus. However, upon seeing this, she saw something near imperceptible, what appeared to be a matrix of dark purple and black across the entirety of his eyes. Extremely strangely, the dark purple seemed to snake through his eyes rather than remaining fixed, almost tracing another eye intermixed over his. Even stranger was when this ghostly pair of eyes seemed to move independently and have their own reaction.

Immediately after this, something seemed to shift in his expression as he blinked and took notice of her. He gave a smile that was mirrored within this regular eyes, but the other, ghostly eyes were suspicious. The dichotomy was distracting enough that Blake nearly didn't catch him saying, "Good morning, miss. Is there something the matter, Miss Belladonna?" he asked, concern within his voice and upon his expression. The ghostly eyes only increased in suspicion. The latter look dredging up her fear of discovery of being a former member of the White Fang, making her turn her gaze away.

"Sorry, I thought I saw something," Blake said, putting thoughts of the other eyes out of her mind as she turned to leave.

"Wait," he spoke up.

"What?" Blake asked as she faced him.

It seemed his outburst was unintentional, and he seemed to scramble for something to say. "Might I ask what it was you had seen?" he seemed to settle on.

The feline Faunus looked back into his eyes by habit, and saw the doubled eyes once more, the tangible ones displaying a mix of concern and curiosity while the ethereal eyes had the same gaze tempered by lingering suspicion. While she still averted her eyes from directly looking into his, the fear of discovery did not return as fiercely. "It was nothing," Blake responded.

The Faunus saw him frown, and go silent for a few seconds. She turned to leave once more before he asked, "What is your name?"

Turning, she responded, "Blake Belladonna."

"Solomon Rosenkreutz," he responded after a nod.

She returned the gesture then walked off, during which she heard him seem to say something below his breath in an unfamiliar language.

-0-0-0-

Thanks to how early he had woken up, it seemed as if he was going to be the first one to arrive at the locker room. It did not take him long to put on the chainmail shirt and the belt containing the holster for his pistol and sheathe for the knife over it. By the time he had put on the cuirass and spaulders, others had begun to arrive. After a passing glance at those entering, he sheathed his seven point five inch knife, that was serrated near the hilt, in its left hip sheathe and picked up his semi-automatic forty caliber pistol to inspect it. Upon removing the clip, he felt Tactical Warrior growing annoyed by the presence of the weapon, causing the Rose Duelist to give a grim chuckle just below his breath.

' _I was horrible with a sword, and you know it,_ ' Solomon directed to the leader in self-depreciative humor, as he made sure the chamber had no rounds in it. His thoughts took a more serious turn as he continued, ' _If things were to go really bad, I would be far better able to defend myself with this._ '

' _You…certainly were…and that statement is true,_ ' Tactical Warrior grudgingly admitted, thanks to earlier, limited utilization of the Rose Card's abilities to establish a full mental connection and the life point shield. ' _That does not mean I have to like you selecting such an inelegant weapon, however._ '

Solomon expressed a small smile at both her response and satisfaction there were no rounds. The Rose Duelist released the slide and returned the clip to the gun, holstering it after flipping the safety back on. ' _I do not hear you complaining about the weapons of the other students. They do incorporate guns into their design,_ ' Solomon responded.

' _At least they still have melee weapons included,_ ' the leader responded defensively. ' _And being able to club an enemy with your pistol does not make it a melee weapon as well._ '

Solomon gave a low chuckle and shook his head in response, before grabbing a pair of spare clips from the locker and attaching them to the weapons belt. Shutting his locker, he turned and was about to respond to Tactical Warrior's comment when he had to stop fast in order to avoid running into someone. "My apologies. I was distracted and had not seen you there," he said, with a slight bow.

"It's alright. You didn't actually run into me," responded…

' _Oh come on, I_ know _there are other guys here. I_ saw _one enter this room,_ ' he thought as he looked up, surprised and exasperated, as Tactical Warrior had a slight laugh at his expense. Some of his mental thoughts must have been evident on his expression, as the bronze armored female's expression shifted to a mixture of confusion and another emotion he couldn't place. Shaking his head to clear his mind, he responded, "I apologize. You are both the fourth student and the fourth female student I have met here. The absolute one to one nature of those statements is a strange coincidence that is growing annoying. I apologize if I had done anything to cause offense, Miss."

"Phyrra Nikos," she responded in a more cheerful tone, though still tempered by something. He noted in the back of his mind that something seemed familiar about her appearance, but he was unable to place it.

' _She must have thought you were asking her name,_ ' Tactical Warrior observed.

' _Apparently,_ ' he mentally replied, while starting a very slight bow. "Solomon Rosenkreutz," he responded aloud with a smile.

A confused look crossed Phyrra's face while she looked him over. "Only a knife and a pistol?"

"Those two weapons are backup in case my primary means of combat is impaired in some way," he stated with a shrug. "I doubt they will be utilized, but I will have them if they would be needed."

' _What was the word you used to describe such thought…don't jinx it?_ ' Tactical Warrior asked.

' _There is no good answer to that statement,_ ' he responded, missing something said by Phyrra. "I apologize, but would you kindly repeat that? I have only learned Vytalan recently due to the isolation of my homeland."

"I had asked what your primary weapon was," She responded.

Solomon felt Tactical Warrior listening intently in on what he was going to say after he heard Phyrra's comment. Speaking carefully, the Rose Duelist responded, "It is not a weapon. It is my semblance." Solomon mentally sighed in relief when Tactical Warrior seemed satisfied with the response.

"You rely purely upon your semblance with no weapon?" Phyrra responded critically. "That does not seem to be the wisest of decisions."

"My semblance is quite...unusual. It is difficult to explain." Solomon responded. Noting her apparent disappointment, he continued, "I have managed to simplify the description to a degree. The most basic description would be the word summoning."

-0-0-0-

Any annoyance that Weiss Schnee had had at finding someone already speaking to Phyrra was erased when she heard his description of his semblance. ' _Did I hear that right? Did he just claim to have the same semblance as my family's?_ ' she thought to herself. "Excuse me, what was that you said?" she asked aloud, approaching the one who made the claim.

He turned to face her, and the steel armored individual seemed to get an annoyed expression. He seemed to notice he had, and then said, "I apologize. That was not directed towards you. It was just some slight musing on the fact that all five of the other student I have met thus far have been female. The coincidence of that statement is getting old," he responded, pinching the bridge of his nose. Lowering his hand, he continued, "The answer to your question is that I had said that the most basic description of my semblance would be summoning, Miss. It is not a complete description of the semblance. It is simply the simplest description I can make."

Weiss looked at him with temporary shock likely evident on her face before she suppressed it. ' _So I didn't mishear him. He did make the claim. If it is true, why hasn't he come to my family's attention before?_ ' she thought. Speaking aloud, she asked, "What is your name?"

"Solomon Rosenkreutz," the steel armored figure responded with a very slight bow. Turning to Phyrra he asked, "Would you like for me to introduce you as well?"

Weiss was slightly indignant at the implication she did not know who the four time Champion of Mistral was, but before she could voice it, Phyrra spoke up, saying, "While you could, I believe Miss Schnee already knows who I am."

"Who wouldn't know of the top graduate of Sanctum academy and the four time Mistral Champion?" Weiss asked rhetorically.

"Possibly someone who was from an exceptionally isolated homeland that had been unable to understand any form of Vytalan for several years of their life," Solomon responded with a shrug. "I must admit that I am likely the only one to fit that qualification."

' _That…would explain why he wouldn't have been heard of…_ ' Weiss realized. ' _Still...why has another summoning semblance not come to our attention?_ '

Giving a shallow bow again, Solomon said, "I am afraid I must be leaving. There is someone I had promised I would speak to today. Conversation had ended in a poor place last night, so it would likely be wise for me to speak with them before Initiation. I wish you both good luck in finding a team."

"You as well," Phyrra responded. "Goodbye."

"Farewell," Weiss said while distracted as Solomon left.

-0-0-0-

' _I am certain Ruby and Yang entered the room out of the other door, and you missed them,_ ' Solomon heard Tactical Warrior say in his mind.

' _Probably. Amazing what poor timing can cause,_ ' the Rose Duelist reluctantly commented as he walked towards the cliff for initiation after hearing the Professor's announcement. Stepping upon one of the platforms, he soon noted the two he had been intending to speak to get upon platforms further down in the direction of the Headmaster and the Professor. He might have gone over to say something, if the Headmaster hadn't begun speaking.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest," Ozpin began.

' _Seems we got the location right,_ ' Solomon thought.

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates... _today_ ," continued Glynda.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well," Ozpin once more spoke. "That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

' _That seems a bit contrarian,_ ' Tactical Warrior thought. ' _Everyone should find someone they would work well with, but that person must be the first one they find?_ '

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path... or you _will_ die," the Headmaster continued.

' _I sincerely hope there aren't any idiots that misconstrue that to potentially include other students,_ ' Solomon thought. ' _Then again, you can never underestimate human stupidity. I myself aided the summoning of what might have been an elder god._ '

"You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics," the Headmaster stated. "Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. You will guard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?"

' _Is he referring to the same temple we arrived in?_ ' the Rose Duelist thought.

' _The artifacts must be placed on the pedestals we had seen,_ ' the Leader responded.

' _I guess we will see,_ ' Solomon replied.

" _Good_! Now, take your positions," Ozpin finished.

' _Hang on, he mentioned landing strategy, just what are these-'_ Solomon thought before noticing one of the platforms further up catapult someone off into the distance. Bracing himself against the platform, he simply thought, ' _Well okay then._ '

The sound of activating catapults slowly reduced in proximity until the Rose Duelist felt the platform activate itself and then launch him forwards extremely quickly. The sheer speed Solomon was launched forth at and the height awoke a primal fear in the back of his mind he wrangled with to prevent from overtaking his mind, assisted by Tactical Warrior utilizing her own calm emotions to influence his to prevent volatility. ' _We're going a bit_ _too fast to use a summon to help us land,_ ' he thought when his mind calmed.

' _If we even got one that could fly in the first place,_ ' Tactical Warrior commented. ' _The deck is mostly land based creatures._ '

' _True. And it is likely you would need to be in the physical form in order for us to enact the summoning,_ ' Solomon responded. ' _Hang on…_ '

' _The transfer does render us both incorporeal while it is in process,_ ' the Leader voiced the line of thought Solomon had. ' _You do have total control over your movement in the ethereal state, so you can slow down using that._ '

' _Your sigil can be used to manipulate your position, so you can reduce your speed that way,_ ' the Rose Duelist responded. ' _We are going to need to pull it off close to the tree tops in order to maximize the time of the incorporeal transfer state. Do you think you will have enough time?_ '

' _At very least we will have the life point shield to take what I cannot reduce,_ ' Tactical Warrior responded. ' _If they have students pulling it off, it can't be close to the blow we had to take during the fight against the Guardian._ '

The zenith of the flight was soon reached, and the descent to the ground began soon after that comment. After carefully angling his body so his feet were facing towards the ground, he waited a short time for the trees to approach. When they were at what he felt to be the right distance, he began the language of magic's chant in a low voice.

"Worlds of Spirit and Shadow beyond this Mortal Realm, I call upon thee." A low aura of purple energy flared around his form as the tops of the trees approached. "Have the master of my deck take my physical place within this world so I may soar through the world as an ethereal spirit," he continued, the lightning beginning to flare around his form and fade it from existence. Next to him, the falling form of Tactical Warrior began to materialize as they entered the canopy. "This I ask of you, through the authority granted by the power of the Rose Cards!" he finished as they passed through the canopy and began to approach the forest floor, the transfer completing and the sigil appearing below.

Having passed the branches, Tactical Warrior strengthened the sigil of the White Rose until it was tangibly manifested and used it to reduce her speed as rapidly as she could without potential harm coming to her physical form. While Solomon could have instantly stopped in his ethereal form with but a thought, he instead followed alongside his Deck Master at an equal pace. The sigil stopped her momentum approximately a foot above the grassy floor, and Tactical Warrior let the sigil fade to an ethereal state that would not disturb the ground, letting herself drop the short distance to the ground.

Now upon the ground, Solomon once more spoke the opening and closing of the chant, but with the center aspect being, "Permit me to call forth your creatures and cast your ancient spells to destroy the forces arrayed against me."

Once this was completed, Tactical Warrior inquired, ' _What do we have access to?_ '

' _Axe of Despair, Guardian of the Sea, Empress Judge, Charubin the Fire Knight, and Kunai with Chain,_ ' responded Solomon. ' _Charubin would only be a 1600, so he would be strong enough to face the Beowolves..._ '

' _But stronger likely exist in this area,_ ' finished Tactical Warrior. ' _Still, he is our best option right now._ '

' _That he is,_ ' replied Solomon. ' _Ready?_ '

' _Ready,_ ' Tactical Warrior acknowledged. Their minds began the overlay required for the summon, the connection soon establishing to synchronize their voices and movements. The sphere of energy manifested itself in their cupped forward stretched right hands as they simultaneously spoke in the language of magic, "Invoke. Fourth Strongest Connection. Forward."

The spheres shot forth and fused, rapidly forming the vortex of energy that marked the summon as hidden. When stability was reached in it, Solomon and Tactical Warrior returned the connection to its normal state, with a small side effect of a few memory fragments being switched. Solomon wasn't sure what Tactical Warrior had gotten, but he temporarily 'recalled' the calming sensation of being along a sea shore in the winter for a little under a second.

' _We are out of practice,_ ' Solomon stated.

' _It has been awhile,_ ' Tactical Warrior admitted.

' _Thank you for summoning me, my lieges,_ ' Charubin the Fire Knight spoke over the mental connection. ' _It has been long since I have been within the realm of mortals._ '

Tactical Warrior gave a nod of acknowledgement, before responding, ' _Kindly manifest yourself, Charubin. It is nice to see whom you are speaking to._ '

' _As you command,_ ' the blue armored with red cape knight responded as the vortex shifted to his kneeling form. Standing with his mace held in his right hand, he spoke in the language, "What is your command?"

"I will be searching ahead while Tactical Warrior follows," Solomon responded. "Your task is to prevent the Grimm from landing direct blows upon her to drain the Life Point shield." The Rose Duelist felt the annoyance Tactical Warrior had with the need to be guarded, but as usual, that was always tempered by her resignation that it was a side effect of how the magic worked for manifesting Deck Leaders that required that. They had made attempts to change that to allow her to have the ability to participate in combat, but no other possibility had been found yet.

"Understood, my liege," Charubin responded with a bow.

The group of three began making their way northwards, Solomon moving ahead a fair distance without fear thanks to the ethereal form rendering him impossible to harm. This did not mean there were not strange reactions possible, for example the strange sensation of accidentally having someone go directly through him, as eventually happened. Brushing aside the strange sensation, he faced the individual and noticed it was a fellow student, who simultaneously noticed him. At the edge of his awareness, Solomon felt Tactical Warrior and Charubin approaching. Speaking to the individual he ran into, he stated, "It seems we are partners assuming you have not already run into someone. I assume you have questions. Feel free to ask."

-0-0-0-

 **Finally finished this thing. Would up restarting a couple times and backtracking a few times over the course of this. Due to it having closed in on roughly a month, I just decided to blitz ahead with whatever ideas came into my mind. Should note I didn't specify who it was Solomon ran into at the end of the chapter due to still being unsure as to who might result in the most interesting stuff happening. Hopefully there won't be another delay this long that causes me to want to just get the chapter done, and possibly have areas suffer, but who knows what the future holds.**

 **Anyway, slight tangent. How might horror stories compare between Remnant and our world? I figure they might have us beat in the 'supernatural creatures' (eg. Werewolves, Wendigos, etc) department, but in 'humans are the real monsters' and Cosmic Horror, I figure we might have them beat. May not even have the latter, as one of the reasons it was created was due to us being at the top, and Remnans have always had to deal with the Grimm. Granted, due to having existing monsters they could always use compared to our lack, we might be a bit more inventive in the 'supernatural creatures' side of things. Thoughts?**


	12. New Story Set for Revised Version Made

**I've started a rewrite of the story in a separate story set. I remember a piece of writing advice that went along the lines of "If you can't reread what you wrote, then how can you expect anyone else to read it?" and going back to look at the first chapter results in a few moments where I see I have screwed up badly. I believed it would probably be a good idea to go back through and fix things to put them in a better condition. There's a few more details in the revised version that probably should have been here, but oh well.  
**

 **I think this site doesn't mutilate on-site links that bad, so here it is. It's been awhile, though, so I may be wrong:**

 **s/12568903/1/A-Rose-for-a-Kingdom-Revised-Version**


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